Search engine using Mysql and PHP

Hi FOlks, I'm developing a website for an IT recruitment agency and would like some info on the following. I have a html textfield that accepts input from the user regarding their skills set. This can be just one word (eg. HTML) or several (eg. JAVA C++ PHP ASP). I'm wanting to use these words to search a MySQL database which has a field called "Description" which holds information on a vacancy including the skills required. The way i thought to do this was to 'explode' the returned string from the form, and assign them to variables and use a query such as: SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE description LIKE '%$desc1%' AND description LIKE '%$desc2%' AND description LIKE '%$desc3%' ..... and so on...... However i do not know the number of skills that the user may enter and also what if the user enters a string like 'visual basic' where it should be read as one variable but may get split into two cause of the space inbetween. also i need the search to return results firstly using 'desc1' AND 'desc2' AND 'desc3' syntax, then once that is exhusted, i need it to return results where only one or two of the words are mentioned. There are several points here that i have mentioned and I hope some one is able to follow what i have said, and also possibly provide a suitable solution. Many thanks, Vikesh. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free! http://photos.yahoo.com/