using LIKE

durangod · 12-13-2012, 03:07 PM

I rarely use LIKE so just wanted to verify this is correct, it seems to work..

$searchsql is the field name, choice of several
$searchforthis is what they entered into the input.

The wildcard % needs to be on both sides to truly be wild right.

PHP Code:


			


$query="SELECT * FROM recipes WHERE $searchsql LIKE '%$searchforthis%' AND rec_approved = 1 ORDER BY $searchsql";

Fou-Lu · 12-13-2012, 03:23 PM

That's right.
"truly wild" searches though also can't be indexed, so as your recipes grow, the time it takes to search will also grow accordingly. If you use a BEGINS with type approach for the criteria instead of the CONTAINS approach, then you can index it.

durangod · 12-13-2012, 03:36 PM

Thanks, it is a male oriented site and i just added the recipes page as a favor to one of the female members so i dont see alot of data being entered like it would on a purely recipe site. Not that men dont cook but you get my drift.

I would be very surprised if there are even a couple hundred in the next 5 years. So i dont see a huge issue with searches unless it starts getting into the thousands of records.

Thanks so much.

AndrewGSW · 12-13-2012, 05:26 PM

As long as we can find "cakes" and "takeaways" I'll be happy

Fou-Lu · 12-13-2012, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by durangod

Thanks, it is a male oriented site and i just added the recipes page as a favor to one of the female members so i dont see alot of data being entered like it would on a purely recipe site. Not that men dont cook but you get my drift.

I would be very surprised if there are even a couple hundred in the next 5 years. So i dont see a huge issue with searches unless it starts getting into the thousands of records.

Thanks so much.

I hella bake, but don't consider myself less of a man for doing so. I'm not a great cook though. . .
Regardless, the same applies to any table search. If you search for a user that contains 'AC' in their name, you need to check every record to see if its true (%AC%). As opposed to searching for someone who's name begins with AC (AC%) which can be indexed. So you should be careful with containment searches and use the sparingly if you can get away with a begins with. In the web world that's often a simple matter of having a search box with a drop down next to it that gives the options for begins with and contains. Default to begins with and at least most of the work would be done using a begins with search.

Old Pedant · 12-13-2012, 08:10 PM

But if you have no choice about using %AC% and if things start bogging down, look into Full Text searches.