Searching your database

Radon3k

I'm interested in adding a search feature to my page. I know what the query to the database is, but I don't understand certain parts.

<input type="text" name="search">
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE ?? LIKE %??%";

Where I have the ?? is what I don't understand. Are these variables? That's what I'm confused on.

Any help is greatly appreciated. 🙂
Thanks,
Radon3k

[deleted]

the first group of ??? is where your column name goes that you want to compare against. the second group of ??? is where you would place what you are searching for. for example, if you were searching for entries containing "foo" in the column bar your code might look like this:

$search = "bar";
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE bar LIKE '%$search%'";
$result = mysql_query($sql);

netmastan

$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE ?? LIKE %??%";

ie.

$sql = "SELECT * FROM customer WHERE address  LIKE %$search%";

here $search is the variable what you type in the search box.

Note.The above way .. it will only search single word.let say you address fields has this words" Willoughby Road". if you search for just "willoughby" it will show result.but if you search for the whole word " Willoughby Road" you won't get results.

the following method is better.I just got the following code from this forum.Here ur form input varaible is $q.

$search = '';
$the_array = explode(' ', $q);
$i = 0;

foreach( $the_array AS $t ){
if( $i == 0 ){
$search .= " '%$t%' ";
$i = 1;
}else{
$search .= " OR address LIKE '%$t%' ";
}
}

$sqlx= mysql_query("select address from customer where address like $search",$dbi);
........etc....

Radon3k

Err...I don't understand that code you posted. Any chance you could explain it please? 🙂

Thanks,
Radon3k

martyn

Errm, if i used this SQL:

SELECT FROM table WHERE LIKE '%$search%'

Would it search all the fields?

wkoneal

what it does is,

$search = '';
$the_array = explode(' ', $q);

$i = 0;

Split a string like "miami tampa westpalm" and put it as an array

$search .= " OR address LIKE '%$t%' ";

For each value in array put it there and insert it at the end

end result will be:

$search = "OR address LIKE '%miami%' OR address LIKE '%tampa%' OR address LIKE '%westpalm%' ";