Wildcards in SQL

[Anon]

I'm trying to make a search script that reads through the database entries for a Search String. I have the following:

$result = @("SELECT ID FROM Table Where $Type like \"%$SearchString%\"", $link);

This works fine, only when I search for 'LAN', it will retrieve entries with 'plane' in them.

I can use:

$result = @("SELECT ID FROM Table Where $Type like \"% $SearchString %\"", $link);

to remedy this, but then if I search for an entry that only contains 'LAN' it will not show it. How can I fix this?

Thanks

[brandonschnell]

1) consider full text indexes & searches

2) give your users a choice. i put a little pull down menu where they can select either "Containing" or "Is" and search using '%$search_string%' or '$search_string' depending on what the user selects. about the only thing these searches are useful for are searching for a single keyword.