This works in phpmyadmin but not in php

[Colum]

I have a script that adds a user to mysql and makes them a database. This is the php code:

$user = mysql_escape_string($_POST['user']);
$pass = mysql_escape_string($_POST['user']);
//add the shit
$sql = 'CREATE USER \'free_'.$user.'\'@\'localhost\' IDENTIFIED BY \''.$pass.'\';'
. ' GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO \'free_'.$user.'\'@\'localhost\' IDENTIFIED BY \''.$pass.'\' ;'
. ' CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `free_'.$user.'`;'
. ' GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `free_'.$user.'`.* TO \'free_'.$user.'\'@\'localhost\';';
mysql_query($sql) or die("<pre>".mysql_error()."<br />".$sql);

and when I run the code, I get this error:
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ';# MySQL returned an empty result set (i.e. zero rows). GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO 'f' at line 1
CREATE USER 'free_testing'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'testing';
GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO 'free_testing'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'testing' ;CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `free_testing`;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `free_testing`.* TO 'free_testing'@'localhost';
now if I take the sql code from above, which is this:
CREATE USER 'free_testing'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'testing';
GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO 'free_testing'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'testing' ;CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `free_testing`;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `free_testing`.* TO 'free_testing'@'localhost';
and run it in phpmyadmin it works. This is all on the same server. Whats up?

[falko]

I'd use double quotes for SQL statements:

$sql = "CREATE USER 'free_".$user."'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '".$pass."';"
. " GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO 'free_".$user."'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '".$pass."' ;"
. " CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `free_".$user."`;"
. " GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `free_".$user."`.* TO 'free_".$user."'@'localhost';";