Highlight Search Terms in Search Results

PHP
1

Hello,
I have a PHP/MySQL based Web application, that has a search feature.

The client would like the word that the visitor entered in the Search box highlighted in the results.

Any idea on how to achieve this?

2

Thanks!!

3

Also you can try to do this with javascript
http://www.tripbase.com/code/highlightTutorial.html
http://eriwen.com/javascript/highlight-search-results-with-js/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/04/10/how-to-highlight-search-terms-with-jquery/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2500987/jquery-highlighting-a-live-search-result

4

A simple way …

$strg = "Some string containing the character to be highlighted";
$high = "character";
$repl = '<span class="highlight">' . $high . '</span>';
$out = str_replace($high, $repl, $strg);
echo '<p>' . $out . '</p>;

The class “highlight” would contain styles to determine HOW the highlighting is done. e.g.

.highlight {
  font-weight: bold; // Bold text
  color: #FF0000; // Text color red
}

preg_replace() is another function to consider.

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