I have this script that searches and returns the desired result if only one search term (one word) is entered. It will return nothing with more than one word, just a blank page. I've tried using split/explode and then itterating the array in a search loop, and I'm still not getting anything meaningful.

Some pls help

http://www.kephassolutions.com

Can you please post your code for my better understanding?

----------
---Snib---
----------

<><

Here is the code that searches the database;
//=================================================

            if (!($conn = db_connect()))
            return false;
        $result = mysql_query( "select id, name
                                 from list
                WHERE name LIKE '%$searchterm%'
    OR addr LIKE '%$searchterm%'
    OR state LIKE '%$searchterm%'
    order by name
    $limit_str
    ");

         if (!$result)
             return false;

  // make an array of the churchids

    $all_churchid = array();

    for ($count = 1; $row = mysql_fetch_row($result); ++$count)
      {
         $all_churchid[$count] = $row[0];
      }
        return $all_churchid;
//==================================================

This works fine when I search for just one word. But if I enter 2 or more words at a time, it says "no match for my search" and if I try spliting/exploding the '$searchterm' before running the query, I get no result


http://www.kephassolutions.com

Hmm. How are you handling the split cases? You didn't post code that deals with multiple search terms. split() and explode() return an array, so if you used that return value as a string, you'd just search for the string "Array" in your database.


$terms = preg_split("/\s+/", $searchterm); // split on whitespace

$where_clauses = array();

foreach ($terms as $term)
{
    $where_clauses[] = "name LIKE '%{$term}%'";
    $where_clauses[] = "addr LIKE '%{$term}%'";
    $where_clauses[] = "state LIKE '%{$term}%'";
}

$where_clause = " WHERE " . join ("\n OR ", $where_clauses);



Suppose your $searchterm was "hello world".

This would be split into an array containing "hello" and "world".

For each of these terms, you'd create an array ($where_clauses) containing the <col> LIKE <term> for your three columns.

Finally, you join them all together, separated by "OR" (with some formatting whitespace).

The result:

WHERE name LIKE '%hello%'
   OR addr LIKE '%hello%'
   OR state LIKE '%hello%'
   OR name LIKE '%world%'
   OR addr LIKE '%world%'
   OR state LIKE '%world%'



You might want to search online for PHP search engines and see how they do it. As you increase the number of search terms, you'll need some way of tracking the "best" matches. This is usually done by sorting by the number of pages that have ALL terms, then by all pages that have N-1 matches, then N-2, ..., and finishing with 1.
   (where N is the number of terms)



Take care,

Nik
http://www.bigaction.org/

Hi Nik,

I've been trying like a week to get this thing to work. I've tried applying the code in different formats to no avail. The best result I get so far is a blank page. Below is the method I used in applying the code you posted earlier.

===================>>
<?
require_once("fns_lib.inc"); // my function library

//============ function to search multiple words ==================

function searchxp()
  {
  global $searchterm; // submitted from a form input field

  // search for the search term

  $searchterm = trim($searchterm);


  //test for empty submissions

    if (!$searchterm)
    {
    echo "No search term entered";
    exit;
    }

  $terms = preg_split("/\s+/", $searchterm);

  $where_clauses = array();

    foreach ($terms as $term)
         {
       $where_clauses[] = "name like '%{$term}%'";
       $where_clauses[] = "addr like '%{$term}%'";
       $where_clauses[] = "state like '%{$term}%'";
     }

  $where_clause = "where" . join ("\n or ", $where_clauses);


    if (!($conn = db_connect()))
        return false;
        $result = mysql_query( "select churchid, name
                                 from list
                '$where_clause' ");

         if (!$result)
             return false;


      // Displays the list

    $num_results = mysql_num_rows($result);

  if ($num_results == 0)
   {
     echo "No record Found";
     exit;
   }

    echo "<h4>[u]$num_results results found for $searchterm</u></h4>";

  for ($i = 0; $i < $num_results; $i++)
    {
    $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);

    echo "<span id=results>";
    echo "<strong>";
    echo htmlspecialchars(stripslashes($row["name"]));
    echo "</strong>";
    $name = $row["name"];
    $churchid = $row["churchid"];
    echo "</span>";
    echo "<br>";

    echo "</p>";

   }

  }
// ===== function ends here =========

  searchxp(); // call to function

?>

============>>

This is my complete code, please let me know where I'm getting it wrong.
Thanks a lot

http://www.kephassolutions.com

Looks to me like there's no whitespace between "where" and your first where clause.

That is, your query is likely failing because it looks like:

  wherename like '%term%'
or addr like '%term%'
or state like '%term%'


Some simple debugging measures would've allowed you to discover this a week ago. If you output the query before running it to make sure it looked okay, or perhaps output MySQL's error description when $result was false, you would've seen the answer yourself!

Don't be afraid to debug your own code! Use the tools available to you: namely, print the value of variables, and use the error messages at your disposal. Some extremely useful functions:
  http://www.php.net/echo
  http://www.php.net/print_r
  http://www.php.net/var_dump
  http://www.php.net/mysql_error



Take care,

Nik
http://www.bigaction.org/