Match Vs Where - Fulltext Search

Hi all. It took me some time to discover that you can't use a "MATCH | AGAINST" statement unless you create an fulltext index of the fields to search at the same time. Strange, I know. What's more strange is that as I read more I wonder why people use it because it will only seartch complete words, will not search on words that are 3 characters or less, treats hyphenated words as seperate words and has a whole long list of excluded words. OK, so I'll use the following: [code]$query = "SELECT * FROM MembersData WHERE UserID LIKE '$Keyword01' or UserID LIKE '$Keyword02' or UserID LIKE '$Keyword03' or UserID LIKE '$Keyword04' or UserID LIKE '$Keyword05'"; $Data = mysql_query($query) or die("Error 1: " . mysql_error());[/code] But the only problem I see with this is that although it allows me to search using wildcards and partial words it seems a very lengthy way of completing the task because I think I would have to repeat this statement with something like "OR WHERE" for each field I wanted to search. I know this post is lengthy and I apologise for putting you to sleep but I'd really love to get to the bottom of this one sometime soon. Has anyone else experienced similar frustrations searching their databases - I can't be the only one...! -- ----------------------------- Michael Mason Arras People www.arraspeople.co.uk -----------------------------