a more useful search script

blaster_master

with my limited knowledge, i for now know how to write a search script that does search through the database using only exact words (in the correct order). how can i make it work with non-exact search terms?

e.g. in db say we have something like "i am no one or what". my simple script can work if i search for a term like "am" or "i am" or "no one" or etc. but not for "am what" or "i one am"...
what code do i have to use in order to make it possible?

thnx alot if u help...

Frederick

Are you surrounding your variable such as below:

fieldname = '%$variable%'

Paste your code so we can see.

blaster_master

yes, that's the format i was using.

<?php
$searchstring=trim($searchstring);
if ($searchstring){
$sql="SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE $searchtype LIKE '%$searchstring%'";
$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "......", "...........");
mysql_select_db("my_db",$db);
$result = mysql_query($sql,$db);
while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
  echo_the_results;
  }
}
else
{
?>
some_html_code
<?php
}
?>
</HTML>

Roger_Ramjet

Sounds like another job for a Full Text Search . That would be my choice.

The other option, and there always is another option with SQL, would be to use LIKE %$word1% OR LIKE %$word2%. Unless you want all words to match in which case it would be AND instead of OR. You would need to seperate the words, use php explode function to do that, and then build the query string. Which seems unneccessarily complicated, so use the full text search.

blaster_master

i prefer the explode way instead. but i don't seem to be able to figure out a good reasonable code with it.

the fulltext search seems very confusing on mysql.com and i just don't get it. unfortunately being a fulltime univ student, i don't have much time to read through the whole thing there or surf the net to find a good way to solve this. so, if u know how to do it, then please help this poor. i only had the xmas holidays to learn about php and database stuff from zero up to this point -and i barely managed it. thnx already for the help so far...

Roger_Ramjet

$search = $_POST['searchtext'];
$words = explode(" ", $search);
$i = 0;

foreach ($words as $val) {
if ($i==0) {
$where = "WHERE $searchtype LIKE '%$val%' ";
}
else {
$where .= "AND $searchtype LIKE '%$val%' ";
}
$i++;
}

// to build the where clause

blaster_master

thnx roger... seems to work ok for now, however i'm facing a very ridiculous problem in searching. i'll start a new thread

this is solved btw!! (i'll keep the thread open in case if i wanted to ask questions about "improving my search engine" which is relevant to the title of the thread)