How to build a search engine for my website?

enjoiskater

Hey,

I'm trying to learn more PHP at the moment. But I already have a big problem with my next project. I would like to learn how to build a search engine for my webiste. A engine that search trought my database after a game.

It should work something like this.

Write a gamename in the searchbox, hit search, a new page loads and the results comes up. And if there are games with a similar name they should also be shown. So if you write Spider-man, then all spider-man games in our database in shown.

Now, I dont want finished codes. But if anyone could help me out how to start? Or maybe if anyone know a good guide or something how to do this.

I know some PHP, I know how to connect to a database and also how to echo out the information and such. But I just can't seem to manage this. I also would like help with the security if that's possible.

Best Regards
Tobias

djjjozsi

Read the comments, this might help to get ideas.

<form action="search.php" method="post" name="Form">
<input name="Search" id="Search" type="text" value="<?php echo ( isset( $_POST["Search"] )?htmlspecialchars( $_POST["Search"] ):"" ) ?>">
<input name="Go" type="submit" value="Go">
<form>
<?php
include( "connectDB.php" );

if ( !empty( $_POST["Search"] ) ) {
    /*If the search word entered into the form, */
    // use mysql_real_escape_string on the inserted value to protect your database from MYSQL injection
    $search = mysql_real_escape_string( $_POST["Search"] );
    $sql_desc = "select * from `games` WHERE game_title LIKE '%$search%'";
    $result_desc = mysql_query( $sql_desc ) or die( mysql_error() ); 
/*run tehe query and troubleshoot if its needed with the mysql_error() */
    if ( mysql_num_rows( $result_desc ) > 0 ) {
/* You have results with the search word*/

    print "<table border=\"1\">";
    while ( $rows_desc = mysql_fetch_assoc( $result_desc ) ) {
/* Get the rows from the table */
            print "<tr>";
            echo "<td># " . $rows_desc["id"] . "</td>";
            echo "<td>" . ( empty( $rows_desc["game_title"] ) ? "&nbsp;" : ( htmlspecialchars( $rows_desc["game_title"] ) ) ) . "</td>";
            echo "<td>" . ( empty( $rows_desc["descript"] ) ? "&nbsp;" : ( htmlspecialchars( $rows_desc["descript"] ) ) ) . "</td>";
            print "</tr>";
        } 
        print "</table>";
    } else
        echo "There was no game in the table with $search name...";
} 

?>