Search script - need help

[adammc]

Hi folks,

As you know, I am still trying to learn PHP.

What I am trying to do is create a search script for my Job Posting Site.
The code that was being used didnt work as whe someone searched for example (chef), it returned results. But if they searched for (chef anyword) it didnt return any results.

So, I am trying from scratch to create a new script
I am REALLY stuck trying to figure out this code 🙁
Can anyone please help?

Code on job search form:

<form action=job-search2.php method=get>

<input type='text' name='keyword'>

<td>Type of employment:</td>
<td>
    <select name="employment_type">
	<OPTION VALUE=""></OPTION>
	<OPTION VALUE="Not Stated">Not Stated</OPTION>
	<OPTION VALUE="Contract">Contract</OPTION>
	<OPTION VALUE="Temp">Temp</OPTION>
	<OPTION VALUE="Casual">Casual</OPTION>
	<OPTION VALUE="Part Time">Part Time</OPTION>
	<OPTION VALUE="Full Time">Full Time</OPTION>
    </select>
</td>

I can see in theory how this has to work but I dont have the confidence or knowlege to work it out.
select from job_post where position LIKE '%$GET[kw]%' description LIKE '%$GET[kw]%'

• I have read somewhere that the query needs to be in an array to get the 'search for any of the keywords' trick to work, is that right ?

• If the user selects or doesnt select an $employment type it will have to take that into account.

[DoctorWho]

select * from yourtable where KeyWordColumnName like '%$keyword' or KeyWordColumnName like '$Keyword%' or employment_type_column = "$employment_type"

you could do that to get a fairly decent return without dealing with arrays

matters not if emloyment_type is choosen or not

[Roger_Ramjet]

The best way to do this would usually be with a full text search. You just need to build the query string.

If for some reason you can't/won't use full text indexes and search then you have to build the query string in a different way. Ordering the results according to relevence also becomes a problem which FTS handles for you.

[adammc]

DoctorWho wrote:

select * from yourtable where KeyWordColumnName like '%$keyword' or KeyWordColumnName like '$Keyword%' or employment_type_column = "$employment_type"

you could do that to get a fairly decent return without dealing with arrays

matters not if emloyment_type is choosen or not

Thanks for the reply 🙂

I tried your suggestion the query returned a result when searching for 'chef' but wouldnt return a result when searching for 'chef anyword' or 'anyword chef'

$sql = "select * from job_post where position like '%$keyword' or description like '$keyword%' or employment_type = '$employment_type'"; 


// return results
$result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
echo $row['position']."<br>".$row['description']."<br><br><br><br>"; 

[Roger_Ramjet]

// build an array of word seperators
$search = array(' ' , ', ' , ',' , '  ');
// use word-seperators to create a comma-delimited string of keywords
$kw = str_replace($search, ',' , $_GET['keywords']);

// use new word list in a full text search

$sql = "SELECT * FROM job_post
           WHERE MATCH (position, description)
           AGAINST (" . $kw . ")"

// OR DOING IT WITHOUT FULL TEXT - BUT WHY????

// make an array of keywords, assumes words seperated by single space
$kw = explode(' ', $_GET{'keyword']);

// use keyword array to build WHERE clause of query string;
$i = 0;
foreach ($kw as $val) {
     if ($i>0) { $str .= " OR ";}
     $str .= "position LIKE '%" . $val . "%' OR description LIKE '%" . $val . "%'"
     $i++;
}

// build query

$sql = "SELECT * FROM job_post
           WHERE " . $str;

The full text search will find records with any match to any keyword in either column, but it will also order the results sorted with the highest relevance first.

Without full text you will just get them returned as found, probably defaulting to the primary key order. No ordering according to relevance will occur.