[RESOLVED] Crazy Retriveal... Explanation?

[Channel5]

Can anyone solve this? I'm having trouble...

I'm coding a search field with numerous values, where it's only necessary for one value to be entered.

For example:

The field has inputs for name, email, address, and phone number.

But the admin can just type the name or just the email and it will bring back all the matching values.

Right now, I'm using code like this:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM customers 
WHERE name='$name' 
  OR email='$email' 
  OR address='$address' 
  OR phone='$phone' 
or die(mysql_error());

But when I run this through a loop, it brings back more values than the one that should apply to the search criteria.

For example, if I type 'John', it brings back 'John' at the top, then a bunch that are not 'John'.

Does anyone know what's going wrong?

[bradgrafelman]

I would say only add the OR conditions if the variables aren't empty. Example:

$where = array();

if(!empty($name))
    $where[] = "name='$name'";
if(!empty($email))
    $where[] = "email='$email'";
if(!empty($address))
    $where[] = "address='$address'";
if(!empty($phone))
    $where[] = "phone='$phone'";

$where = implode(' OR ', $where);

EDIT: Also, don't forget to make sure that the variables are properly sanitized, e.g. with [man]mysql_real_escape_string/man.

[Channel5]

One more thing...

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but how would I use this in my MySQL query? Something like this:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM customers 
WHERE " .$where)
or die(mysql_error());

EDIT: I got it. Maybe I should remember to test it myself before asking in the future. 😉