Searching Singular Items

nyoung2005

Hi,

I am trying to get PHP to search my mySQL database. Everything is fine at the moment except for the query is not searching for singular items. For example if you type in mint it comes up with everything with mint in it but if mints is typed in it does not bring up everything with mint!

Can anyone tell me where I am going wrong?

Many Thanks Code Below!

$searchString = $_POST['searchString'];

include("dbProductsConnect.php");

$sql = "SELECT * FROM productlist WHERE title LIKE '%$searchString%'"; 

$rs=mysql_query($sql,$conn) or die("Could not execute query");			

$noOfRecords = 0;

$list = "<br/>";
$list .= "<hr>";

while($row= mysql_fetch_array($rs) )
{
   $productID = $row["productID"];
   $postedTitle = $row["title"];
   $postedDescription = $row["description"];
   $postedPrintArea = $row["printarea"];
   $postedLeadTime = $row["leadtime"];
   $postedFastTrack = $row["fasttrack"];
   $postedCategory = $row["category"];
   $postedMinQuantity = $row["minquantity"];
   $imageDisplay = $row["image2"];

   $noOfRecords++;

   $list .= "<span class=\"productCatalogueItems\"><b>Item " . $noOfRecords . ": </b></span>";

   $list .= "<span class=\"pageMenuLinks\"><span class=\"productCatalogueItems\"><a href='product.php?cmd=product&productID=$productID&category=$postedCategory&title=$postedTitle&description=$postedDescription&image2=$imageDisplay&printarea=$postedPrintArea&minquantity=$postedMinQuantity&fasttrack=$postedFastTrack&leadtime=$postedLeadTime'>".$row["title"]."</span></a></span><br/><br/>";

   $list .= "<p class=\"productCatalogueItems\">$postedDescription</p>";
   $list .= "<hr>";
			}

if ($noOfRecords==0) 
{
   echo "<p>Your search returned 0 products</p>";
   echo("<p><a href='javascript:history.back(1);'>Back</a></p>");
}
else if ($searchString == "")
{
   echo "<p>You did not type anything in the search box</p>";
   echo("<p><a href='javascript:history.back(1);'>Back</a></p>");
}
else
{
   echo("<span class=\"productCatalogueItems\">Below are your results for <b>$searchString</b>:</span><br/>");
   echo($list);
}

obrienkev

It's because of your query - the LIKE '%searchString%' part.

The %'s at the beginning and end means the query will display all results containing the word entered.
for example, if you enter mint then because of % at beginning and end, it will return all words containing mint such as spearmint, myminto, etc..

Get the idea?

so if you want it to return mints then remove the last %.

Read up on the php manual on the % (wildcard character).

Kevin.

mystrymaster

mint finds mints as the phrase mint is contanied

mints is not in mint

to the best of my knowledge if you would like a search on a plurar item to find it singular counterpart you would need to do some pattern matching and whenever a word ends in the character s search for the word with s and without out.

Basically count the string and check on the last letter.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific but I haven't done it but that idea should get you going in the right direction.