Explode-Array-Search

The_PHP_Newb

Hi. I have a database entry that looks like this:

$entry = '2-4-6-8';

I need to seach $entry for a number. What I tried was to explode - in the variable but now I'm stuck with searching for the number.

What I want is something like this:

// if $entry contains a 4 do something
// else
// do something else

FYI: The number of values in the variable (between dashes) could be unlimited.

Any help is appreciated.

dagon

WHERE foo LIKE '%4%'

should work

The_PHP_Newb

Thank you for the response. It works to a degree for what I need. If I add periods I get false positives.

DB Entry: 123.234.345.456-987.876.765.654-444.555.666.777

Assume those are 3 seperate pieces seperated by hyphens.

123.234.345.456
987.876.765.654
444.555.666.777

LIKE '%123.234.345.456%' works.

But so does:

LIKE '%123%'

I only want results for the 3 seperate entries. How can I only search between the hyphens?

dagon

it sounds like you should really normalise your db first. there should never be a single cell with multiple pieces of data in it. there is however the regular expression syntax, which may help