MySQL Search Query...

[Anon]

Hey,

I'm making a PHP/MySQL search engine and I was wondering how to make a MySQL search word by word.

For example, if I search for "the bear" I want MySQL to look in my content column for "the" OR "bear"...

Thanks for any help,
Andrew

[[deleted]]

Check out the manual for "fulltext index" and "fulltext search" it can make your life much easier :-)

[Anon]

Vincent,

I know your message is like MONTHS old but maybe you're still alive to answer this little query...

I was half way through making a seach facility on my site using fulltext indexing/search when i realised it will only find EXACT matches and it CANT do LIKE '%keyword%' searches, so i gave up on it as i thought it was pretty useless!

Was i correct or did i give up too soon do you think????

(im now trying to write a script that will split the words the user enters in the search box and then search several columns for each of the user's words . . . finding it a nightmare!!!)

[[deleted]]

You were just about correct. FULLTEXT is near useless for searches (typicall MySQL invention)

The only seartch that really works is the one described in the 'slapping together a search engine' article in the articles section.

That gets you precise results including the LIKE options.