Re: PHP+MySQL=Help(?)

. Thank you for the heads up on using like. I was wondering since there will be 2 similar variables from each page var1 var2 (identical except for the number). I programmed in DataFlex for about 6 years back in the late 80's early 90's but have not done anything db wise in over 8 years.... I still do not know where the problem was (maybe syntax or spelling....) Again, thank you for all of your help... Mike "Kurt Lieber" <php@kirpatrick.com> wrote in message news:E15yxVD-0005ls-00@z8... > On Wednesday 31 October 2001 02:32 am, you wrote: > > So, I'd recommend giving that a try. From my understanding (limited) of > > MySQL, use = in the case of $id=2, and LIKE in the case of firstName > > LIKE "justin". > > Um...you *can* do that, but I don't think you want to. Using LIKE means that > MySQL has to do a lot more searching on all your database records. Instead > of searching for an exact match, where it can look at things like string > length, first characters and other simple criteria, it now has to evaluate > the entire contents of the field in case there's a possible match somewhere > in the string. Much, much slower. > > So, yes it works, but you pay a performance price for it. > > --kurt