MySQL 'LIKE' Query

satch

Hi Folks,

I am trying to query a database using this command:

// code

$query = "Input from text field";

$result = ("SELECT id FROM table_name WHERE title LIKE '$query' ");

// end code

This works great with one issue. The string "art" will return Bart, or smart (anything with the string 'art' in it) but "arts" will not. I assume because the ending 's' is not in the string. I could just tear off any 's' from the query string but what if someone querys 'octopuses'? It will not return octopus.

I hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance!

🙂

devinemke

why would you want/expect "arts" to return "bart" or "smart"? think about that for a moment. by your logic "arts" would also return: war, tsint, rtm, armour, giants, etc...

satch

Mistake in my previous post.

I need the search to return a entry with the search query. I meant to use the % in the post "WHERE title LIKE '%query%'

so a person searches for art will return something like: "Head of the blah blah ARTs for... "

Any better ideas for getting the results?

tomhath

What you are trying to do is both difficult and risky.

Use regular expressions to strip off the suffixes. Also learn how to untaint the input so your web site isn't attacked:

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/061902-1.shtml

satch

the input text has been run through a series of functions to remove bad code such as strip tags and html and such.

I just want people to be able search my DB and return the titles they find. Am i going about this all wrong?

Roger_Ramjet

Originally posted by satch
the input text has been run through a series of functions to remove bad code such as strip tags and html and such.

I just want people to be able search my DB and return the titles they find. Am i going about this all wrong?

Probably. This sounds like a perfect place to be using full text search