Search Help

[dottomm]

Hi. I'm trying to search multiple DB fields with a Select Menu and I don't know where to start.

for example, from the code below I would like the value ='strAuthorname' to actually search the fields 'AuthorFirstName' AND 'AuthorLastName'.

<form method='post' action='{$_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]}'>
<!--select tag -->
<select name='metode' size='1' >
<option value='strTitle'>Title</option>
<option value='strMediatype'>Media Type</option>
<option value='strAuthorname'>Author</option>
</select> 
<input type='text' name='search' value='{$search}' size='25'> &nbsp;

<input type='submit'   value ='search now'></p>
</form>

<?php 

 if ($search !="" || $metode !="") {
// shoot off query
$res = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tblpublications WHERE {$metode} LIKE '{$search}%'");

echo  "
//results here
";
?>

Is this where I would use an array? I'm completely confused. Is this even possible?

thanks in advance!

-tom

[nav33n]

$query = "select * from table where AuthorFirstName like '%$searchstring%' or AuthorLastName like '%$searchstring%'";

This will look for $searchstring in both AuthorFirstName and AuthorLastName fields. :) I hope thats what you want !

[dottomm]

Thank you for your quick reply, but what I'm doing is using a select menu to choose what field the search query is looking in. However, I would like the select menu value to equal multiple values.

For instance, I would like the

<select name='metode' size='1' >
<option value='option1'>Option 1</option>
<option value='option2'>Option 2</option>
<option value='Author Name'>Author</option> <!--this value to search Author First Name &  Author Last Name Plus a Second Author First Name and Second Autor Last Names -->
</select>

so I want to set the select menu value 'Author Name' to search multiple data fields. Is this possible?

[nav33n]

Yes. Possible.

<?php
if($_POST['metode'] == "Authorname") {
//if the user selects authorname from the list then use this query
$query = "select * from tablename where firstname like '%$searchtext%' or lastname like '%$searchtext%'";
} else {
   // else use other query 
}

[dottomm]

Thank you so very much. That is exactly what I was looking for!!!