[RESOLVED] Database search - highlight matches

Johny7126

I am developing a search facility for my website. Once all or part of the word is entered into the search, I want it to find matches and then display them.

At the moment if it finds a whole word from the DB it will highlight it but not part of the word e.g.

Word in DB = "backpack"
Search = "backpack"
Highlighted = "backpack"

Word in DB = "backpack"
Search = "back"
Highlighted = "" //nothing as apposed to what I need

I use this function where the parameters $text is the string to search through and $words is the search term:

function highlightWords($text, $words)
{
	/*** loop of the array of words ***/
	foreach ($words as $word)
	{
		/*** quote the text for regex ***/
		$word = preg_quote($word);
		/*** highlight the words ***/
		$text = preg_replace("/\b($word)\b/i", '<span class="highlight_word">\1</span>', $text);
	}
	/*** return the text ***/
	return $text;
}

I tried to do a preg_match but to no avail - would this be correct for what im looking for?

Cheers anyone for any suggestions

bradgrafelman

Looks fine to me; even worked as expected in a test script.

Can you show us how you're trying to implement this function?

Johny7126

Its okay I do not think this is necessary anyway.

But heres the code:

	$words = array($search_term_1, $search_term_2, $search_term_3);
									$search_results_items =  highlightWords($string, $words);

Cheers for reply

bradgrafelman

Can you do a print_r() on $words and echo out $string and paste the results for us?