PHP - Custom Search

Hello,

Does anyone know a tutorial I can follow to create my own search engine over the items I have in my SQL database?
I find a lot of tutorials but they are all 'one word searches' which means if you type two words you will get all results that contain either word (too many hits).

If the search engine tutorial displays result with AJAX even better.

Thanks for help.
df

Hello. I am working on a php script for searching a database table. I am really new to this, so I used the this tutorial http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorial/simple-sql-search

I managed to get all the things working the way I wanted, except one important and crucial thing.
Let me explain.
My table consist of three columns, like this:

ID(bigint20)    title(text)        link (varchar255)
=============================
ID1                title1                link-1
ID2                title2                link-2
etc...

Like I said, I managed to make the script display results for a search query based on the title. Want I want it to do more, but I can't seem to find the right resource to learn how, is to place a "Download" button under each search result with its corresponding link from the table.

Here is the code I used.

<?php

$dbHost = 'localhost'; // localhost will be used in most cases
// set these to your mysql database username and password.
$dbUser = 'user'; 
$dbPass = 'pass';
$dbDatabase = 'db'; // the database you put the table into.
$con = mysql_connect($dbHost, $dbUser, $dbPass) or trigger_error("Failed to connect to MySQL Server. Error: " . mysql_error());

mysql_select_db($dbDatabase) or trigger_error("Failed to connect to database {$dbDatabase}. Error: " . mysql_error());
// Set up our error check and result check array
$error = array();
$results = array();
// First check if a form was submitted. 
// Since this is a search we will use $_GET
if (isset($_GET['search'])) {
   $searchTerms = trim($_GET['search']);
   $searchTerms = strip_tags($searchTerms); // remove any html/javascript.
   
   if (strlen($searchTerms) < 3) {
      $error[] = "Search terms must be longer than 3 characters.";
   }else {
      $searchTermDB = mysql_real_escape_string($searchTerms); // prevent sql injection.
   }
   
   // If there are no errors, lets get the search going.
   if (count($error) < 1) {
      $searchSQL = "SELECT title, link FROM db WHERE title LIKE '%{$searchTermDB}%'";

      $searchResult = mysql_query($searchSQL) or trigger_error("There was an error.<br/>" . mysql_error() . "<br />SQL Was: {$searchSQL}");
      
      if (mysql_num_rows($searchResult) < 1) {
         $error[] = "The search term provided {$searchTerms} yielded no results.";
      }else {
         $results = array(); // the result array
         $i = 1;
         while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($searchResult)) {
            $results[] = "{$row['title']}<br /> Download - this is the button I want to link to the title results - and maybe other links too - <br /> ";

    $i++;

       

   
         }
      
      }
   }
}

function removeEmpty($var) {
   return (!empty($var)); 


}
?>

      <?php echo (count($error) > 0)?"The following had errors:<br /><span id=\"error\">" . implode("<br />", $error) . "</span><br /><br />":""; ?>
      <form method="GET" action="search?" name="searchForm">
         Search for title: <input type="text" name="search" value="<?php echo isset($searchTerms)?htmlspecialchars($searchTerms):''; ?>" />
        
         <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Search" />
      </form>

    <?php echo (count($results) > 0)?"Rezultate lucrari de licenta sau disertatie pentru {$searchTerms} :<br /><br />" . implode("", $results):""; ?>




 $results = array(); // the result array
         $i = 1;
         while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($searchResult)) {
            $results[] = "{$row['title']}<br /> Download - this is the button I want to link to the title results - and maybe other links too - <br /> ";

    $i++;

 
I would like the results to be displayed like this

Results for SearchItem:

Result 1
Download | Other link
Result 2
Download | Other link
etc.... or something like this.

So, how do I add the data from the link row into a text(Dowload), within an <a href> tag (well, at least I guess it would go this way) ?
My first tries (fueled by my lack of knowledge) where things like

$results[] = "{$row['title']}<br /> <a href="{$row['link']}">Download</a> <br /> ";

but I keep getting lots of errors, and then I don't know much about arrays and stuff (except basic notions);
So there it is. I am really stuck and can't seem to find any workaround for this.
Any suggestions? (examples, documentation, anything would do, really)
Thanks,
Radu

Hi all

How do I modify the below code to search multiple tables in mySQL database?

$query = "select * from store_items where description like \"%$trimmed%\"  or title like \"%$trimmed%\" or dimensions like \"%$trimmed%\" order by id ASC";

 $numresults=mysql_query($query);
 $numrows=mysql_num_rows($numresults);

It is for a search function and I need it to search another table called 'about_text' and 'faq_text'

Thanks
Pete

Friends,

I want to extract the Search Keyword from the URL, a visitor came from. I am using a PHP CMS and want to show the Keyword on my Blog.

So if they search "abcd" from google, i want to extract "abcd" and echo on my blog.

Here is the coding i could got hold of, but its not working, not echoing anything

<?php

function pk_stt2_function_get_delimiter($ref) {
    $search_engines = array('google.com' => 'q',
'go.google.com' => 'q',
'images.google.com' => 'q',
'video.google.com' => 'q',
'news.google.com' => 'q',
'blogsearch.google.com' => 'q',
'maps.google.com' => 'q',
'local.google.com' => 'q',
'search.yahoo.com' => 'p',
'search.msn.com' => 'q',
'bing.com' => 'q',
'msxml.excite.com' => 'qkw',
'search.lycos.com' => 'query',
'alltheweb.com' => 'q',
'search.aol.com' => 'query',
'search.iwon.com' => 'searchfor',
'ask.com' => 'q',
'ask.co.uk' => 'ask',
'search.cometsystems.com' => 'qry',
'hotbot.com' => 'query',
'overture.com' => 'Keywords',
'metacrawler.com' => 'qkw',
'search.netscape.com' => 'query',
'looksmart.com' => 'key',
'dpxml.webcrawler.com' => 'qkw',
'search.earthlink.net' => 'q',
'search.viewpoint.com' => 'k',
'mamma.com' => 'query');
    $delim = false;
    if (isset($search_engines[$ref])) {
        $delim = $search_engines[$ref];
    } else {
        if (strpos('ref:'.$ref,'google'))
            $delim = "q";
elseif (strpos('ref:'.$ref,'search.atomz.'))
            $delim = "sp-q";
elseif (strpos('ref:'.$ref,'search.msn.'))
            $delim = "q";
elseif (strpos('ref:'.$ref,'search.yahoo.'))
            $delim = "p";
        elseif (preg_match('/home\.bellsouth\.net\/s\/s\.dll/i', $ref))
            $delim = "bellsouth";
    }
    return $delim;
}

/**
 * retrieve the search terms from search engine query
 * */ 
function pk_stt2_function_get_terms($d) {
    $terms       = null;
    $query_array = array();
    $query_terms = null;
    $query = explode($d.'=', $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
    $query = explode('&', $query[1]);
    $query = urldecode($query[0]);
    $query = str_replace("'", '', $query);
    $query = str_replace('"', '', $query);
    $query_array = preg_split('/[\s,\+\.]+/',$query);
    $query_terms = implode(' ', $query_array);
    $terms = htmlspecialchars(urldecode(trim($query_terms)));
    return $terms;
}

/**
 * get the referer
 * */ 
function pk_stt2_function_get_referer() {
    if (!isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) || ($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] == '')) return false;
    $referer_info = parse_url($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
    $referer = $referer_info['host'];
    if(substr($referer, 0, 4) == 'www.')
        $referer = substr($referer, 4);
    return $referer;
}



$referer = pk_stt2_function_get_referer();
if (!$referer) return false;
$delimiter = pk_stt2_function_get_delimiter($referer);
if( $delimiter ){
$term = pk_stt2_function_get_terms($delimiter);
}
echo $term;
?>


May someone help?

Natasha T

I have code to search a database of members, I can search by lastname but having a little problem. I want to be able to search by lastname starting with the first letter. (ie:  a or b or c or d and so on). As it is right now I can only search by first letter of last name if I add % to the search (ie: a% b% c%) will give me all members with the last names starting with the approiate letter designation. I'm not sure how to handle this, any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Code: [Select]
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title></title>
 
</head>
<body>
<center><table cellspacing="10" cellpadding="10" width="750" border="0">
<h4>Search</h4>
 
<form name="search" method="post" action="<?php $PHP_SELF?>">
Seach for: <input type="text" name="find" /> in <Select NAME="field">

<Option VALUE="lname">Last Name</option>
<input type="hidden" name="searching" value="yes" />
<input type="submit" name="search" value="Search" />
</form>
 
<?php 
 
// check to see if anything is posted
if (isset($_POST['find'])) {$find = $_POST['find'];}
if (isset($_POST['searching'])) {$searching = $_POST['searching'];}
if (isset($_POST['field'])) {$field = $_POST['field'];}
 
//This is only displayed if they have submitted the form 
if (isset($searching) && $searching=="yes") {
echo "<h4>Results</h4><p>";
// If they did not enter a search term we give them an error
if (empty($find)) {
echo "<p>You forgot to enter a search term"; exit;
}
 
// Otherwise we connect to our Database 
mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "1910") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("cmc_member") or die(mysql_error());
 
// We preform a bit of filtering 
$find = strtoupper($find);
$find = strip_tags($find); $find = trim ($find); 
 
// Now we search for our search term, in the field the user specified 
$results = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM members WHERE upper($field) LIKE'$find'");
 
// And we display the results 
if($results && mysql_num_rows($results) > 0)
{
    $i = 0;
    $max_columns = 3;
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($results))
   {
       // make the variables easy to deal with
       extract($row);

       // open row if counter is zero
       if($i == 0)
          echo "<tr>";

       // make sure we have a valid product ALIGN='CENTER'

       if($fname != "" && $fname != null)
          echo "<td ALIGN='CENTER'><FONT COLOR='red'><b>$fname $lname</b></FONT><br> $address <br> $city $state $zip <br>$phone<br><a href=\"mailto: $email\">$email</a><br></td>";

       // increment counter - if counter = max columns, reset counter and close row
       if(++$i == $max_columns)
       {
           echo "</tr>";
           $i=0;
           }  // end if
   } // end while

} // end if results

// clean up table - makes your code valid!
if($i < $max_columns)
{
    for($j=$i; $j<$max_columns;$j++)
        echo "<td>&nbsp;</td>";

}

//This counts the number or results - and if there wasn't any it gives them a little message explaining that 
$anymatches = mysql_num_rows($results);
 
if ($anymatches == 0) {
echo "Sorry, but we can not find an entry to match your query<br><br>"; }
 
//And we remind them what they searched for 
echo "<b>Searched For:</b> " .$find;
}
?>
</tr>
</table></center>
</body>
</html>

Hello,

I'm developing a website that asks the user to submit a keyword for a search. The results should display matches for this keyword, but also show matches for related keywords (in order of relevenace!).

I'm planning on building up a library of which search terms users use in the same sessions (e.g. if someone searches for "it jobs" and "php jobs", I'll know the terms are correlated), and I'll also measure the click-through rates of the items on the results list.

I've been spending all weekend trying to map out the design for this but it's proving incredibly complicated and I think the solution is likely to be on the internet somewhere already?!

Please could someone point me in the right direction if you've come accross this problem before?

Thanks a million,

Stu

I am developing a intranet forum in Php and MySQL and I am using ajax to display searched results on the same page but right now I am using query LIKE text% to search in database which is slower. but I want to make it fast search engin which can parse *,+ and show result.

Since I am using ajax i am not able to use free search engin,so if possible pls provide a complete solution

Hello All,

I am in the process of learning MySQL and PHP.

I have a real-world application that I would like to develop for someone using MySQL and PHP, provided I can end up with the necessary user interface for the application.

The user will be launching a web browser to start the application.

The application will be developed for two purposes:
to record employee information (name, contact info, category of worker such as: cook, dishwasher, server, host)
to record the hours worked by each worker for each day and then generate a report that can be sent to the accountant by email or fax

Since the interaction will take place in a web browser, what are the possibilities as far as having customization for the text fields (controllable size of text field, larger than the form element), having start and end times with the colon symbol inserted automatically, to name a few.

When a text field is inserted via HTML, the rectangle is rather small.  Can the default sizes of form elements be enlarged?

Hello.

I am currently working on a new site (http://sa.cx) that is basically a free domain like this: (example.sa.cx). My main goal is to allow users to set the the full MX, CNAME, A and SOA records.

Any ideas on how I could go about this using php?

My initial thought would be via cURL.

Hi Everyone.

I'm trying to generate a non standard PK in the form of 000111-YU, where 0001 refers to the record number, the 11 refers to the year and the -YU is a set of random letters / numbers. The 0001 can increment throughout the year, but once 2012 occurs, the counter needs to be reset back to 0001.

I need this number to be generated and inserted into the table, but I also need to have form fields inserted into the db. for eg. FirstName and LastName are names of textboxes in a form.

this is what i have so far, but i keep receiving 'error, insert query failed.'
<?php

$db="db";
$link = mysql_connect('localhost', 'root', 'pw');

if (! $link) die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($db , $link) or die("Couldn't open $db: ".mysql_error());

$query = "INSERT INTO records (IDNumber, FirstName, LastName)
SELECT * FROM (
    SELECT
        # id
        CONCAT(
            # Sequential number, incremented, zero-padded
            LPAD((SUBSTR(COALESCE(MAX(IDNumber), '0'), 1, 4) + 1), 4, '0'),
            # Two-digit year
            DATE_FORMAT(CURRENT_DATE, '%y'),
            # Literal hyphen
            '-',
            # Two random letters (AA-ZZ)
            CHAR(
                FLOOR(65 + RAND() * 26),
                FLOOR(65 + RAND() * 26)
            )
        )
       
    FROM
        records
    WHERE
        IDNumber LIKE CONCAT('____', DATE_FORMAT(CURRENT_DATE, '%y'), '-__')
) ";

mysql_query($query) or die('Error, insert query failed');

?>

Hi guys, i have a ipn paypal setup where users can buy items from my custom made shop, however in original ipn code, the logged in users should have the same email with paypal to call on ipn which user has bought what, so I have decided to pass a custome variable as

<input type="hidden" name="custom" value="<?php echo "$username";">


the hard part is in my ipn how im i going to recieve the username variable? what should i put in my ipn. In ipn code I have example code:


$item_name = $_POST['item_name'];
$item_number = $_POST['item_number'];
$payment_status = $_POST['payment_status'];
$payment_amount = $_POST['mc_gross'];
$payment_currency = $_POST['mc_currency'];
$txn_id = $_POST['txn_id'];
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
$payer_email = $_POST['payer_email'];


but now, can u help me to recieve the username so i can match my mysql query which user has bought what?

thanks in advance

Hi.  I was just wondering if it is possible to write custom mysql errors.  I have hunted around for some but cant find any.  Currently I write my errors like...


or die (mysql_error());


How ever I see this as a problem!  As Im not the best coder there are bound to be errors in my code.  I dont want somebody who knows what they are doing to cause an error and then doing it (mysql_error()) will point them in the right direction to what I have missed.

I would rather have my own error saying what line the issue is with.  I have tried.....



or die (mysql_error(My personal error here))


However this does not work.

Please help.  Thank you

When a user clicks on a topic they are transfered to its post, which is retrieved by the name of the topic as given by the url value. up to now i have just used urlencode. But its trickier when a user adds slashes and dots into the mix. for example the title of the post is testing/testing. The url will go to www.asimpleforum.co.uk/t/testing/testing. How would i get around this since url encode doesnt do the job? I could replace slashes and dots with their own unique symbol but that produces the problem when someone uses one of those symbols that i use to replace in their topic title. I know one site in particular that replaces all dots and slashes with a hyphen (-), but how would you know what to turn the hyphen into when you query the database for that topic? Anyone have any ideas?

Hi all,

I'm new here, I just require a (most likely simple for you lot) little help with editing some PHP code...

I am editing a WordPress child themes functions.php file, basically I want to get the logo image alt text to be generated per page by the pages title, I have sucessfully achieved this on some other sites with different themes but am having issues here.

This works in some themes:

 

alt="<?php echo the_title(); ?> keyword keyword"/>

 

So I need to include this:

alt="<?php echo the_title(); ?> keyword keyword"/>

 

Or this:

[show_post_categories show=”title”]

 

Into this, replacing the site_title in the alt= parts:

    // LOGO CODE FOR SORTING ALT TEXT
<!-- Header logo -->
<a href="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>" title="<?php echo esc_attr( get_bloginfo( 'name', 'display' ) ); ?><?php echo get_bloginfo( 'name' ) && get_bloginfo( 'description' ) ? ' - ' : ''; ?><?php bloginfo( 'description' ); ?>" rel="home">
    <?php if(flatsome_option('site_logo')){
      $logo_height = get_theme_mod('header_height',90);
      $logo_width = get_theme_mod('logo_width', 200);
      $site_title = esc_attr( get_bloginfo( 'name', 'display' ) );
      if(get_theme_mod('site_logo_sticky')) echo '<img width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.get_theme_mod('site_logo_sticky').'" class="header-logo-sticky" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
      echo '<img width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.flatsome_option('site_logo').'" class="header_logo header-logo" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
      if(!get_theme_mod('site_logo_dark')) echo '<img  width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.flatsome_option('site_logo').'" class="header-logo-dark" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
      if(get_theme_mod('site_logo_dark')) echo '<img  width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.get_theme_mod('site_logo_dark').'" class="header-logo-dark" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
    } else {
    bloginfo( 'name' );
      }
  ?>
</a>
<?php
if(get_theme_mod('site_logo_slogan')){
    echo '<p class="logo-tagline">'.get_bloginfo('description').'</p>';
}
?>

 

THIS IS THE WHOLE FUNCTIONS.PHP FILE IN MY CHILD THEME:

<?php
// Add custom Theme Functions here
/**
* Change text strings
*
* @link http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference/gettext
*/
function custom_related_products_text( $translated_text, $text, $domain ) {
  switch ( $translated_text ) {
    case 'Related products' :
      $translated_text = __( 'More fire & security systems you may like', 'woocommerce' );
      break;
  }
  return $translated_text;
}
add_filter( 'gettext', 'custom_related_products_text', 20, 3 );
/* USE SHORTCODES IN WIDGET TITLES AND PAGE TITLES !! */
add_filter('the_title', 'do_shortcode');
add_filter('widget_title', 'do_shortcode');
/* NOT SURE WHY I HAD THIS HERE??... <?php echo do_shortcode("[shortcode]"); ?> */
/* ADD ALT TAG TO GRAVATAR - BLOG-AUTHOR-IMAGE - IMAGES */
function crunchify_gravatar_alt($crunchifyGravatar) {
    if (have_comments()) {
        $alt = get_comment_author();
    }
    else {
        $alt = get_the_author_meta('display_name');
    }
    $crunchifyGravatar = str_replace('alt=\'\'', 'alt=\'Avatar for ' . $alt . '\' title=\'Gravatar for ' . $alt . '\'', $crunchifyGravatar);
    return $crunchifyGravatar;
}
add_filter('get_avatar', 'crunchify_gravatar_alt');
    // LOGO CODE FOR SORTING ALT TEXT
<!-- Header logo -->
<a href="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>" title="<?php echo esc_attr( get_bloginfo( 'name', 'display' ) ); ?><?php echo get_bloginfo( 'name' ) && get_bloginfo( 'description' ) ? ' - ' : ''; ?><?php bloginfo( 'description' ); ?>" rel="home">
    <?php if(flatsome_option('site_logo')){
      $logo_height = get_theme_mod('header_height',90);
      $logo_width = get_theme_mod('logo_width', 200);
      $site_title = esc_attr( get_bloginfo( 'name', 'display' ) );
      if(get_theme_mod('site_logo_sticky')) echo '<img width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.get_theme_mod('site_logo_sticky').'" class="header-logo-sticky" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
      echo '<img width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.flatsome_option('site_logo').'" class="header_logo header-logo" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
      if(!get_theme_mod('site_logo_dark')) echo '<img  width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.flatsome_option('site_logo').'" class="header-logo-dark" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
      if(get_theme_mod('site_logo_dark')) echo '<img  width="'.$logo_width.'" height="'.$logo_height.'" src="'.get_theme_mod('site_logo_dark').'" class="header-logo-dark" alt="'.$site_title.'"/>';
    } else {
    bloginfo( 'name' );
      }
  ?>
</a>
<?php
if(get_theme_mod('site_logo_slogan')){
    echo '<p class="logo-tagline">'.get_bloginfo('description').'</p>';
}
?>

I just can't get it to work, keeps throwing errors on save :(

I know this is just a silly newbies error - any assistance would be greatly appreciated.