arrays. remove null values?

[mythix]

Hi,

I'm developing a search engine for my site, but have come accross a problem. Currently a search string is supplied by the user, the string 'strg' is sent via the GET method. Once recieved the PHP uses the explode() function:

$search = explode(" ", $HTTP_GET_VARS["strg"]);

Then counts the words. From the new array and counted number of words it then creates the necessary SQL statement.

However if the search string inlcuded a double space there will be values in the array equivalent to null, and as a result all of the entries from the database are given! Is there an easy way to remove these?

Thanks

[Chris82]

You could try:

$foo = array(' ');
$final = array_diff($search, $foo); 

or if that does not work:

function mylength($var) {
   return str_len($var) > 1;
}

$final = array_filter($search, 'mylength'); 

[mythix]

Now I'm truly confused????

I managed to find a faster way to do it:

$search = array_filter( $search, "strlen" );

At first I thought i had a problem because the code wasn't working, on closer inspection by using the array_values() function I was able to see that even once I had managed to remove the blank values that the search still wasn't working properly!!! and that it is still returning all of the records even after removing these values!

here's a copy of the code:

<form name="searchown" method="get" action="search.php">
<input type="text" size=40 name="strg" class="smalltxt" maxlength="100">
&nbsp;
<input type="submit" align="absmiddle" height=22 class="smalltxt" value="Search" name="submit">
<br>
<span class="smalltxt">For best results do NOT include words such as and etc...</span>
</form>

<?php
if ($HTTP_GET_VARS["strg"]) {

echo "<p class=normtxt>You searched for: <span class=normtxtRed>" . $HTTP_GET_VARS["strg"] . "</span></p>";

$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "root");
@mysql_select_db("mythix",$db);

$search = explode(" ", $HTTP_GET_VARS["strg"]);

$count = 0;

$search = array_filter( $search, "strlen" );

print_r(array_values($search));

$words = count($search);
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tblArticles WHERE ";
$sqlcount = "SELECT count(*) AS total FROM tblArticles WHERE ";
$count = 0;

while ($count < $words) {

if ($count > 0) {
$sql = $sql . " OR ";
$sqlcount = $sqlcount . " OR ";
}

$sql = $sql . "description LIKE '%" . $search[$count] . "%' OR name LIKE '%" . $search[$count] . "%'";
$sqlcount = $sqlcount . "description LIKE '%" . $search[$count] . "%' OR name LIKE '%" . $search[$count] . "%'";
$count ++;

}

$result = @mysql_query($sql, $db);
$resultcount = @mysql_query($sqlcount, $db);
$total = @mysql_fetch_array($resultcount);

if ($myrow2 = @mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

do {

printf("<p class=date><a href=general.php?loc=%s&id=%s>%s</a><br>\n", $myrow2["location"], $myrow2["id"], $myrow2["name"]);
printf("%s<br>\n", $myrow2["date"]);
printf("<span class=normtxt>%s</span></p>\n", $myrow2["description"]);

} while ($myrow2 = mysql_fetch_array($result));


} else {

echo("<span class=normtxtRed>MYTHIX ERROR 2<br>sorry no records were found</span>");

}

printf("<p class=smalltxt>Your search returned %s", $total[total]);

if ($total[total] == 1) {
echo " result";
} else {
echo " results";
}

}
?>

I haven't got round to compacting it. Does anyone know why it is still returning all of the values?

I have published the code so you can look @ what its doing wrong: http:\\mythix.port5.com\search.php

any help greatly appreciated! Note - i'm new to PHP so enlighten me before talking aout really complex stuff

[DR_LaRRY_PEpPeR]

this might be a better way to deal with multiple spaces -- use preg_split() instead of explode().

$search = preg_split('/ +/', $HTTP_GET_VARS['strg']); 

then you don't need the array_filter() part.

[mythix]

Thanks

You resolved my problem