QUERY $result problem

[exponder]

I\'m not exactly sure if this is a problem with my php script, or the way I set up the mysql database.
Simply, when I search the database with \'one\' keyword it prints every table inside the database.
Every thing connects fine, and the submission form works fine, it\'s only when I search it.
I have a totaly of 4 tables only, however all the keywords are very different, yet it still prints every table.
I\'ve tried chaing the table types to CHAR, and VARCHAR, and TEXT, and I\'ve tried turning \'Null\' off and on.

Below, is an example of how I have my db / tables set up.

---

| Field | Type |Attributes | Null | Default | Extra |

| title | text | | Yes | | |
| url | text | | Yes | | |
| words | varchar(150) | | No | | |

| des | text Yes | | | | |

---

| title | url | words | des |

| My Site | testing.com | mysql php help free | descrition here |

And below the query script I\'m using in php.

if ($title == \"\")
{$title = \'%\';}
if ($url == \"\")
{$url = \'%\';}
if ($words == \"\")
{$words = \'%\';}
if ($des == \"\")
{$des = \'%\';}

$table = \"search\";

$query = (\"SELECT * FROM $table WHERE words LIKE \'$words%\'\");

if ($result = MYSQL_QUERY($query)) {

do {
print (\"ETC..\");
} while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result));

} else {print \"Sorry, no records were found!\";}

?>

I\'d be greatfull for any help, or if some one could point me in the right direction.

[[deleted]]

Have you checked to see that $word is not empty?

[exponder]

Yep, I've checked it many times.
However the words are just seperated by a space. Should I submit the 'key words' using a comma?

Thank you for any insight to this problem,
-- Derrick

[[deleted]]

the LIKE operator basically does a subsstring search on your data, using whatever is in the LIKE clause.

If you have a string of 5 space-separated words in there, it will look for records containing that exact string, it will search for records that contain exactly what's in $words.

So if you have 5 keywords and you want to search for records containing all those keywords in a random order, then you'll have to add 5 LIKE clauses, one for each keyword.

This is why it's often better to have a custom search-table that just contains a wordcount of all the words in your content: much faster.