Search Engine Help

Hoangsta

I have a table name "BusinessName" which has the usual business attributes. Anyways, I have this search engine that needs to have the business name fully type for it to search. For example, I have a business name of "Target", I have to type Target or else it wouldn't find it. Meaning, Tar will not find it or any other combinations besides Target.

My code:

$query = 'SELECT client_id,business_type_id,business_name,bu siness_address,city,state_country,zip,busi ness_phone,business_fax,webpagelink FROM BusinessName WHERE business_name LIKE \''.$searchterm.'\' LIMIT 0, 30';

$result = mysql_query($query);
$num_results = mysql_num_rows($result);
echo "<p>Number of records found: ".$num_results."</p>";
for ($i=0; $i <$num_results; $i++)

Please help. I don't want to just look for Target. I want to be able to search anything related to whatever the term is being searched for. Meaning, it doesn't need to be "Target". It could be "Walmart", "Nike", "phpbuilder", "Chocolate" etc.

Another thing is that it duplicates record...I insert in an identical record and when search, I get two results...

blindeddie

Inorder for the like statement to find items that are not exactly the search term, you have to put a percent '%' sign ater the search term,so 'tar%' would find 'target' and 'tarball' and the search term 't%' would find any word that began with the letter 'T'. without the '%' sign, LIKE will only find words that exactly match the search term.

If you have duplicate entries in the database, use the DISTINCT keyword to show only one of the entries

it would look like this.

$query = 'SELECT DISTINCTclient_id,business_type_id,business_name,`bu

siness_address,city,state_country,zip,busi

ness_phone,business_fax,webpagelinkFROMBusinessName` etc. etc. etc.

hope this helps

Ed Warren

Hoangsta

My DISTINCT is not working...I coded the same as you wanted me too..it's still showing duplicates

RedDragon

see,
'SELECT DISTINCT`client_id

client_id seems to be unique so the DISTINCT doesnt do anything...

you need to use DISTINCT business_name

blindeddie

RedDragon is correct... In order for the DISTINCT Keyword to work
properly, all firlds that you are pulling from the database need to be identical. If you have different client ID's for the same client, ther is no way the Distinct keyword will work on the original query.