SELECT * FROM S WHERE s1 LIKE '%what you want to search for%'

table 'user' has rows...
 
id | name
1  | 'john'
2  | 'alan'
3  | 'joe'

SELECT id FROM user WHERE name LIKE '%jo%'

 
 $var = @$_POST['keyword'] ;
  $trimmed = trim($var);
 
$query = "select * from a where MedName like \"%$trimmed%\"  
  order by dispname"; 
 
$query = "select * from b where MedName like \"%$trimmed%\"  
  order by dispname";
 
 $numresults=mysql_query($query);
 $numrows=mysql_num_rows($numresults);

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","root");
mysql_select_db("test");
//get all the tables from the database test
$q = "show tables";
$r = mysql_query($q);
$searchresult = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($r)) {
	$table = $row[0]; // get the tablename
	$searchtables = "select * from ".$table." where col1 like '%".$searchstring."%'"; //search the table column for the search string
	$result = mysql_query($searchtables);
	while($rows = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
		$searchresult[] = $rows['name'];
	}
}
// $searchresult will have all the records from all the tables for the searchstring
?>

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