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Posted by Miles Thompson on 10/04/32 11:24
At 08:54 AM 8/9/2005, virtualsoftware@gmail.com wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I have a site with some phone products. I want to search for a specific
>products. I use this:
>
>SELECT product_id, product_name FROM products WHERE product_name LIKE
>'%$search_string%'
>
>It works fine if the search string counts 1 word. But if the search string
>id counts 2 or 3 or more words it's not working.. How can i do this kind
>of search. I do not want a boolean search or a fulltext search.
>
>Thabks for any help!
A lot of this depends on how your site is constructed and the kind of
products you're offering.
split() the string, strip out any noise words, then use the array
processing features of PHP to build the WHERE condition so you end up with
WHERE product_name LIKE 'arrSearch[1]' OR product_name LIKE
'arrSeach[2]' ... and so forth
I think that would be deadly slow -- you're essentially abandoning any
indexes and doing a sequential read of the database. If MySQL, does it have
string search functions - InString() or InArray()
You might also reconsider your search criteria - offer a series of combo
boxes from which user makes a selection. Then you can construct the query
from the combo box choices.
If the database is MySQL, and you have general description fields, what's
wrong with indexed text search? It's pretty fast.
Or abandon search altogether, and present groups of products, user clicks
on a group which opens up the sub-group with more detailed choices -
usually specific products. See http://www.leevalley.com . The advantage of
this is it exposes the user to associated products.
By the way - how is a search not Boolean? Except for fairly sophisticated
fuzzy logic applications you're either found something or not. (How about
search with three levels? Teenage child - goes out, thrashes around, comes
back with something close, or nothing; Father - more purposeful, but unless
the item is where he last laid it down no hope of retrieval; Mother- here
it is.)
Of semi-fuzzy - you asked for gray, but here's the same thing in a
wonderful orange.
Cheers - Miles
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