<p>In a comment on a previous question, someone said that the following sql statement opens me up to sql injection:</p>

<pre><code>select
    ss.*,
    se.name as engine,
    ss.last_run_at + interval ss.refresh_frequency day as next_run_at,
    se.logo_name    
from 
    searches ss join search_engines se on ss.engine_id = se.id
where
    ss.user_id='.$user_id.'
group by ss.id
order by ss.project_id, ss.domain, ss.keywords
</code></pre>

<p>Assuming that the <code>$userid</code> variable is properly escaped, how does this make me vulnerable, and what can I do to fix it?</p>

Assuming it is properly escaped, it doesn't make you vulnerable. The thing is that escaping properly is harder than it looks at first sight, and you condemn yourself to escape properly every time you do a query like that. If possible, avoid all that trouble and use prepared statements (or binded parameters or parameterized queries). The idea is to allow the data access library to escape values properly.
For example, in PHP, using
mysqli
:
```
```
$db_connection = new mysqli("localhost", "user", "pass", "db");
$statement = $db_connection->prepare("SELECT thing FROM stuff WHERE id = ?");
$statement->bind_param("i", $user_id); //$user_id is an integer which goes 
                                       //in place of ?
$statement->execute();
```
```