PHP pattern match search system

Question

I am trying to have PHP search based on letters entered into a text box. I want it to match a pattern and find the relevant results from the database.

So if I typed in

"Jo Smi"

It would find results

Jo Smith, Pojo Smithson, Ojo Smith

How would one achieve this. I know how to get information from the database but not parts of various fields.

The objective is to search through users searching in fields user_firstname, user_lastname and user_email

Any ideas?

All of these are correct answers: 'like and a wild card', however, simply dropping unvetted text into an SQL statement is potentially a security risk (watcher hints at this with $escapedTextString. Read up a little on SQL injection attacks. — horatio
– horatio, Commented Apr 21, 2011 at 17:10

Ryan Matthews · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-21 16:25:01Z

1

You should be able to do that directly from your query.

get the text box results and escape them then do

SELECT * FROM `database` WHERE `name` REGEXP '{INPUT TEXT HERE}';

That should work I think.

answered Apr 21, 2011 at 16:25

Ryan Matthews

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Ryan Matthews Over a year ago

LIKE will be faster but you can get more exact results from REGEXP. Depends on your need

Jeff Lambert · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-21 16:24:27Z

0

You can do simplistic searching on fields in a database using the LIKE clause:

$query = "SELECT Fields FROM Table WHERE TestField LIKE '%".$escapedTextString."%'";

answered Apr 21, 2011 at 16:24

Jeff Lambert

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Michael Berkowski · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-21 16:24:49Z

0

Do a LIKE search against an upper-cased version of your search terms. Don't forget to mysql_real_escape_string().

$searchpattern = mysql_real_escape_string(strtoupper("Jo Smi"));
mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table WHERE UPPER(column) LIKE '%$searchpattern%';");

answered Apr 21, 2011 at 16:24

Michael Berkowski

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Samarlover · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-21 17:21:13Z

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Hello Man previous answer is good but you want to know this info

get the variable => $name = $_GET['name'];
if you want to make it upper case use strtoupper();
if you want to make it Lower case use strtolower();
if you want to search you should replace = with where like where name = $name to where name like $name
this info
abc% => variable start with abc and finish with any thing
%abc% => variable start any thing , contain abc , finish with any thing
%abc => variable start any thing ,finish with abc

answered Apr 21, 2011 at 17:21

Samarlover

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