Search Phrasing

SP8600

Hi, i would like to add a search function to my site which i can do, however i would like to know this: if some one inputs say the phrase "php tutorial" into the input area then clicks the Submit button to search how can i then take that phrase and seach for "php" first and then search for "tutorial" obviously not so that the user has to press submit for the second part, so i guess its just like google because the address bar would end up something like "http://siteadd/search.php?search=php+tutorial".

Thanks for any help.

SP8600

Anyone have any idea???

Jeb_

You might try breaking the string up into it's word components (using a function like explode(), or even preg_split if you want to take multiple spaces into account), and then searching on the words.

SP8600

I know i would have to split it down, but i dont know how to achive my goal, do i load the words into an array and then search using a Loop? Could some one give me a very simple example to work from?

Thanks.

Jeb_

How your search method works is dependant on what you're searching. Are you searching a database? A collection of files?

If it's a database, I'm sure your database server will have searching functions inbuilt into it. mySQL has the Fulltext search functionality for things such as this. I can't comment on the other database servers though - I haven't worked in them.

If it's files, then you will need to loop across the files you want to search. You can then probably get away with using a regular expression to match the words, and then act based on what entries match the expression.

Bryan_T

Here's the nut of something I'm building that will search for several words individually. The user enters one or more words to search for, against a person's name. (MySQL db)


// $tertiary is the name of the textfield

$user_array = explode(" ", $tertiary); // create array of user-entered words



for($j=0; $j<count($user_array); $j++) {  //starting here, search individually
  $result_name_array[$j] = "Matches for $user_array[$j]:<br>\n"; 
  $tertiary_query = "SELECT name, tertiary FROM $ftable WHERE tertiary LIKE '%$user_array[$j]%'";
  $result = mysql_query($tertiary_query);
  $num_results = mysql_num_rows($result);
  if ($num_results == 0) {
  $result_name_array[$j] = "No matches for $user_array[$j].<br>\n" . "<br>\n";
  }
  $result = mysql_query($tertiary_query);
  while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
     $result_name_array[$j] .= "$row[0]<br>\n" . "<br>\n"; 
  }
}

for($x=0; $x<count($result_name_array); $x++) {
  echo $result_name_array[$x];
  }