how to search

[ashik112]

Hi i am a newbie to PHP. I am trying to do a search criteria. I created a form and posted the information to go on the following page which is the code below. can you please see if i am doing it correctley if not how do i do it.

Thanks

<?
$username="XXX";
$password="XXX";
$database="XXX";

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM contacts
WHERE first='$_POST[name]'");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
echo $row['first'] . " " . $row['last'];
echo "<br />";
}


?>

[sfullman]

looks fine to me. Not sure if you are having problems as you didn't state if anything is going wrong. However it shoudl work, a more elegant way to write the query:

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");
//better to enclose strings in quotes ALWAYS - AND SINGLE QUOTES PROCESS FASTER
$result = mysql_query('SELECT * FROM contacts
WHERE first=\''. $_POST['name'].'\'');