search engine problem

[rozner]

Trying to add some more functionality to a search page I'm doing. It's for a catalog system that I'm making searchable and it works, but I added it a checkbox to the form that says "match words exactly" or something like that and that's what I'm trying to do but it doesn't seem to work.

if ($_POST['search']) {
 if (strlen($_POST['keywords'])>2) {
  $error=0;
  if ($_POST['exact']=="on") $keyword = $_POST['keywords'];
  else $keyword = "%" . $_POST['keywords'] . "%";
  $sqlquery = "SELECT id, category, platform, name, manufacturer, description, price FROM catalog WHERE ";
  if ($_POST['searchOptions']==1) $sqlquery.="name LIKE '$keyword'";
  elseif ($_POST['searchOptions']==2) $sqlquery.="description LIKE '$keyword'"; 
  elseif ($_POST['searchOptions']==3) $sqlquery.="manufacturer LIKE '$keyword'"; 
  else $sqlquery.="name LIKE '$keyword' OR description LIKE '$keyword' OR manufacturer LIKE '$keyword'"; 
  $sqlquery.=" AND delflag=0";
  
  echo $sqlquery;
  $result = dbconnect($sqlquery);
  $number = mysql_numrows($result);
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 

I suppose I could totally change the query if $exact is on and change LIKE to =, but that would involve extra coding which I may eventually do, but I would like to know if there is an easier way. Thanks.

[PHP John]

What if you were to do something like this:

if ($_POST['exact']=="on" )
{
  $keyword = $_POST['keywords'];
  $operator = '=';
}
else
{
  $keyword = "%" . $_POST['keywords'] . "%";
  $operator = 'LIKE';
} 

Then chage all your "LIKE"s to $operator

[Lats]

What if you were to do something like this:
...
Then chage all your "LIKE"s to $operator

Brilliant!

Learning something new everyday here