Using a search term in a query?

aubeasty

Hi There,

I want to use a search term as a limiter in a SQL Query. (ie if someone searches for "chair", I want to use the term 'chair' as part of the WHERE/HAVING clause.

I have 2 php pages, one for the search form (using the $_POST variables to send the search terms to the second php page) and the php page to process the query & display the results.

I have tried a couple of things but any time I try and use $_POST['item'] in a WHERE/HAVING clause, but I get an error that I do not understand. 😕

My Select statement:
$sql="SELECT main.amwsid, main.name2, main.name1, links.url FROM main, links WHERE main.amwsid=links.amwsid GROUP BY main.amwsid HAVING main.name1=$_POST["surname"]";

The error:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected '\"', expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in D:\WWWRoot\amws_test\test.php3 on line 6

I suspect that it's something to do with the value not yet being filled therefore there's nothing to select with.

Any help would be fabulous, thanks!

Andrew🙂

Lars_Berg

$sql="SELECT main.amwsid, main.name2, main.name1, links.url FROM main, links
WHERE main.amwsid=links.amwsid 
and main.name1='" . $_POST["surname"] . "'";

Why group by and having?

jeremuck

you were getting that error because your quotation marks are badly matched.
Lars Berg provided the correct way to create strings.

Anytime you get an error like that, check your braces, brackets, semi-colons, and especially your quotations marks when it says T_STRING.

If are you using an editor that highlights your syntax you will notice it is colored kind of funny, as well.

aubeasty

Lars asked: "Why group by and having?"

This was a carryover from an earlier search I had built using straight SQL. I cut & pasted it into PHP and started working on other things - I never thought to refine it 🙂

Thanks for helping me out, it's now working well 😃

and main.name1='" . $_POST["surname"] . "'";

From what I can see, the first ' is needed because the search term is a string, what does the . signify within the " " marks?

Cheers,

Andrew

jeremuck

the . is the concatenation (dot) operator
it adds strings together.

example

$name = "world";

// notice _very_ carefully the quotation marks.
$string = "hello " . $name . "!<br>";

echo $string.

notice any funny coloring in your select statement?

$sql="SELECT main.amwsid, main.name2, main.name1, links.url FROM main, links WHERE main.amwsid=links.amwsid GROUP BY main.amwsid HAVING main.name1=$_POST["surname"]";

corrected:


$sql="SELECT main.amwsid, main.name2, main.name1, links.url FROM main, links
WHERE main.amwsid=links.amwsid 
and main.name1='" . $_POST["surname"] . "'";

I always use the concatenation operator because it's less ambiguous.