search by multiple varaibles...

So far, I have a form that can be used to search a database by three separate fields. //relevant generation of query //base query $searchStmt = "SELECT *, hi_price, lo_price from $table where " ; //plus concatenated query if ($price_key) $searchStmt .= "price_key like '$price_key' and " ; if ($title) $searchStmt .= "title like '$title' and " ; if ($area) $searchStmt .= "area like '$area' and " ; //minus the trailing 'and ' $stmt= substr($searchStmt, 0, strlen($searchStmt)-4) ; But what I really need is to be able to search a broader section of the DB. This works great if the user only selects one variable for each search term...but how do I write it if they need to be able to select *multiple* variables? I guess multiple variables are an array...but I can't envision what to do with it... thanks, John Corry