(beginner here)search and postgresql

[Anon]

hi - i am currently building a funding database/web search engine for students using php and postgresql, im havin a bit of a hard time figuring this stuff out in the time frame i have since i have never done anything like this. THe plan is to have a search engine as a splash page where there will be a few drop down menus, which will query the database and return a list of sholarships/funds that match the query as links to the actual details for each individual scholarship. i have already built the dbase that displays the details for each individual scholarship but am having a hard time with the search engine bit which leads to the hotlinks of scholarship names listed as a result of the search. any ideas on how to build the database or perhaps conduct a search more efficiently or any example scripts anywhere would be great, thanks for any help.

[smarlowe]

The easiest way to do searches is to build a big ugly sql query in php code and throw it at postgresql.

One of the nice things about postgresql is that it can handle truly huge, ugly sql queries pretty efficiently.

For a single search term, and one field in the database to search, you just need to build a query like so:

$term = addslashes($term);
$query = "select * from table where field like '%$term%'"

But what about multiple fields to be searched? Do it like this:

$term = "1234";
$table = "p1";
$term = addslashes($term);
$fields = array("name","enum");
$query = "select * from ".$table." where ";
for ($i=0;$i<count($fields);$i++){
if ($i>0) $query .= "or ";
$query .= $fields[$i]." like '%".$term."%' ";
}
print $query;

Now you need to write a loop inside to add the ability to search for more than one term, and you're there.