ignore whitespace while searching in database

[asif49]

Below is how the database is searched.

$query = "SELECT * FROM $tbl WHERE content LIKE \"%$var%\"";

$var includes the term or phrase searched for. But using the "LIKE" in the query doesn't seem to ignore whitespace or hyphens or commas (like i want it to)

E.g. if $var contains "helloworld" (what the user searched for) and the content row includes text which is either
"hello world" or "hello-world" or "hello,world"... it won't match it.

It also doesn't match substrings like if I searched "hello world" it wont match a phrase in the content such as "hello some words world"

Is there a way possible that I can work around this?

[asif49]

Uhh, yeah. Still waiting on suggestions/solutions!

[pritaeas]

You can work around it if you split your var into multiple parts, so if your search key is hello world, split on the space (explode) and generate this query:

$search = explode(' ', $var);
$where = array ();
foreach ($search as $item)
{
  $where[] = " content LIKE %$item% ";
}
$query = "SELECT * FROM $tbl WHERE " . implode(' OR ', $where);

[asif49]

While that makes sense to me, it seems to be returning this error:

Warning: mysql_num_rows() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in C:\.......search.php on line 53

Line 52 and 53 has:

$results=mysql_query($query);
 $pages=mysql_num_rows($results);

I'm trying to fix it ^^ but let me know if you know a fix

[asif49]

I think it's because this

$search = explode(' ', $var);
$where = array ();
foreach ($search as $item)
{
  $where[] = " content LIKE %$item% ";
}

returns the output as "Array" so the $sql query

$query = "SELECT * FROM $tbl WHERE " . implode(' OR ', $where);

doesn't know what to do with it

[pritaeas]

Don't guess, know. Output the query, and the error it gives.

echo $query;
$results = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());

[asif49]

Aha okay. echo $query prints out

"SELECT * FROM WHERE content LIKE %wordSearchedFor% OR content LIKE %secondWord(substring)SearchedFor%  "

The other error, as described in the earlier post was:

Warning: mysql_num_rows() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in C:\........search.php on line 53

The above seems like it is the main problem. Although it also also displays this

"Array" returned no results

from the code:

if ($total_pages == 0) 
  {
  echo "<p>Array &quot;" . $search . "&quot; returned no results</p>";
}

If you think seeing the full code will help you deduce something, please ask and I can send it to you!

[asif49]

Oh, and that "sql query or die" thing returns this too:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '%firstword% OR content LIKE %secondword% limit 0,5' at line 1

[pritaeas]

Quotes are missing around '%$item%' .

[asif49]

Ahh yeah! That seems to solve it!