Re: better functionality in query ?

NOTE(!): LIKE '%foo%' DOES NOT SCALE. It looks like you are making a phone book, which could get to be a lot of numbers. On the other hand 'foo%' oddly scales to hundreds of thousands of records without any problems (make sure it's key'd!). Which should work fine in your instance - just have people type in the first 4 letters of the persons name. --Joe On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 04:51:47PM -0700, Jerry Lake wrote: > Damn, if I'd a known it was that easy ;) > Thanks for the help, works great now. > > Jerry Lake - jerryl@europa.com > Web Designer > Europa Communications - http://www.europa.com > Pacifier Online - http://www.pacifier.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jason Lotito [mailto:Jason@lehighweb.com] > Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 7:09 PM > To: Jerry Lake; php-general@lists.php.net > Subject: RE: [PHP] better functionality in query ? > > > > > I'm in process of creating a online whitepages directory for > > a small town phone company and I am having a little difficulty > > in refining my selection. My search form has two fields; last > > and first name. I would like to be able to have more of a wild > > card approach and some refinement when a user enters both a > > first and last name. I am unsure how to go about this, should > > I restructure my query, or make changes to my PHP. here is the > > query I am currently using. and the site is located at > > http://whitepages.maadtelco.com/ any assistance/direction > > is certainly > > appreciated. > > > > <snip> > > $query = "select * from whitepages WHERE last_name LIKE '$last_name' ORDER > > BY last_name" or die("Nothing to see here"); > > </snip> > > > $query = "SELECT * FROM whitepages WHERE last_name LIKE '%$last_name%' ORDER > BY last_name" or die("Nothing to see here"); > > Question, why are you 'die'ing on a variable assigntment? Wouldn't you want > to 'die' on the actualy db_query()? > > Note the added '%', this is assuming you are using MySQL, though they are > generally the same, I believe, with other DB's. The % is essentially > wildcard of any amount. So, if the last_name was BOB > > it would find > > BOBBY > BOBBER > ADOBOB > > $query = "SELECT * FROM whitepages WHERE last_name LIKE '%$last_name%' > $andor first_name LIKE '%$first_name' ORDER > BY last_name" or die("Nothing to see here"); > > In this query, we are including the First Name. In this, we are also using > the $andor variable, which you can define as AND, or OR, or allow the user > to define it by using a radio box or the like when making the search. I > suggest setting a default of OR for the variable $andor. > > Jason Lotito > www.NewbieNetwork.net > Where those who can, teach; > and those who can, learn. > > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-general-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: php-general-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net /******************************************************************************\ * Joe Stump - PHP/SQL/HTML Developer * * http://www.care2.com - http://www.miester.org - http://gtk.php-coder.net * * "Better to double your money on mediocrity than lose it all on a dream." * \******************************************************************************/