Question

I am building a search box that queries a database and autofills suggestions below.

I want to be able to priorities the results in order of :

1 – Exact match

2 – Starts with the same couple of letters

3 – Contains the string somewhere within the database

I have a SQL statement

SELECT * 
FROM Products 
WHERE ProductName LIKE ? 
OR ProductName LIKE ? 
GROUP BY ProductName 
ORDER BY ProductName ASC 
LIMIT 10

In an example for searching for the word “computer”

When typing “co” it should show

• co -co
• co mputer
• co mputer desk
• ac co unt

but when furthering the search to “computer”

• computer
• computer deks

The first binding param contains %computer% and the second contains c%omputer%

Thanks for the help and if you need anything clarifying let me know.

Answer 1

SELECT * FROM Products WHERE ProductName = ? LIMIT 10 UNION
SELECT * FROM Products WHERE ProductName LIKE ? LIMIT 10 UNION
SELECT * FROM Products WHERE ProductName LIKE ? LIMIT 10

This works well, The first ? holds ‘co’ the second ? holds ‘co%’ and the third ? holds ‘%co%’

This prioritises the exact match first, then starting with the string and then containing the string.