[RESOLVED] & operator

[the-Jerry]

Hi,

I have a MySQL query that is my PHP search function. If I search for Rock or Rap it works fine. But as soon as I try to search for R&B it displays everything with a "R" in it. I understand that it is the "&" operators fault. It is performing some Bitwise operation on the search query. How can I escape the "&" operator and find only titles of the R&B genre.

Here is the query:

$query = sprintf("SELECT * FROM library WHERE `genre` LIKE '%s'",mysql_real_escape_string($search);

I appriciate your help. Thanks.

[NogDog]

To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing special about the "&" character in that situation. The only special characters for a string in a LIKE comparison are "%" and "_". My guess would be that something else is happening earlier: maybe the way the $search variable gets populated? In any case, I'd suggest echoing out $query after you define it to see if it actually has "R&B" as the value, or if something is getting lost in translation at that point.

[nunomira]

hi NogDog,

You've got a typo here:

The only special characters for a string in a LIKE comparison are "&" and "".

It should be:
The only special characters for a string in a LIKE comparison are "%" and "".

🙂

[NogDog]

nunomira wrote:

hi NogDog,

You've got a typo here:

It should be:
The only special characters for a string in a LIKE comparison are "%" and "_".

🙂

Oops! I guess I had ampersands on my mind.

Original reply has been edited accordingly -- thanks.

[the-Jerry]

I found the mistake. The "R&B" is send down to the PHP site like this:
http://myserver.com/xml.php?search=R&B

So it only sends down the "R" and igonres the rest. Is there any way I can send the "&" sign as URL?

[bradgrafelman]

[man]urlencode/man

[the-Jerry]

My only problem is the URL is being called from a Flash object. So I cant use urlencode(). Is there any other way?

[bradgrafelman]

Use the proper url-encoding function in the Flash object.