PHP/SQL search field help

[Poeben]

I'm trying to get a rather simple search function working but I'm having a bit of trouble. Basically I have a simple form with one text field. The input is then passed as a POST variable, exploded into an array and then checked for any included operators (+/-). I would like to then construct SQL queries based on the input, e.g.,:

mac iphone leopard => SELECT * FROM * WHERE * LIKE '%mac%' OR * LIKE '%iphone%' OR * LIKE '%leopard%'
mac +iphone -leopard =>SELECT * FROM * WHERE * LIKE '%mac%' AND * LIKE '%iphone%' NOT * LIKE '%leopard%'

I've been able to construct and echo the queries ok as strings (using for loops and substr functons) but I don't know how to construct a single query that depends on a loop. It seems like the for() loop needs to be smack in the middle of the query, or i need to 'echo' the query somewhere as a single variable? Any ideas? Thanks.

edit: Just to clarify, the following code I cleaned up very quickly, so there may be syntax or minor errors....It's really the construction of the actual SQL query from the array/for() I'm having trouble with.

$search = $_POST['search']; //variable from form
$searchArr = explode(' ' , $search); //delimit to array using 'space'
$searchCount = count($searchArr); //count number of search terms

//Connect to database(assume I know how to do this)

//Create query and echo output
$i = 0;
if ($i==0) {
	$queryPrefix = "mysql_query('SELECT `name` FROM `sfx_song` WHERE `name` LIKE '%" . $searchArr[$i] . "%'";
}

for ($i=1; $i < $searchCount; $i++) {

	
	if (substr($searchArr[$i], 0, 1) == "+") {
		echo " AND " . substr($searchArr[$i], 1);
	}
	else if (substr($searchArr[$i], 0, 1) == "-") {
		echo " NOT " . substr($searchArr[$i], 1);
	}
	else {
		echo " OR " . $searchArr[$i];
	}
}




$query = mysql_query(); //Assume I know what to do once I get a working query

 

[cmuench]

Afraid I can't bee too much of a help for you. However whenever I have php or sql questions I post in the PHP forums on http://sitepoint.com

 

[notnek]

for one of my sites i setup a pretty simple yet effect search form. i use a title search and then a tags search. both are basic queries:

$query= "SELECT * FROM table WHERE titlerow LIKE '%$search%' OR titlerow LIKE '%$search' OR titlerow LIKE '$search%' OR titlerow = '$title';

and then before returning results, i do a run through the tags.

$query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE tags LIKE '%$search%' OR tags LIKE '%$search' OR tags LIKE '$search%' OR tags = '$title';

maybe this will help some.

 

[Poeben]

Thanks for the replies. I figured out the first problem...secret was in the concatenating assignment operator ( .= ) within a for().

Next task is getting multiple words within quotes to be passed as a single search term (more substr fun.)