Question

I am setting values in my database for tourneyID,Selected,Paid,Entered,date then separating each selection with a colon

So I have a string that may look like this

    187,S,,,09-21-2013:141,S,,,06-21-2013:144,S,,,05-24-2013 

but it also could look like this

    145,S,,,07-12-2013:142,S,,,05-24-2013:187,S,,,09-21-2013

and some times is looks like this

    87,S,,,07-11-2013:125,S,,,06-14-2013

I am trying to find this sequence: 187,S,,,09-21-2013

I have data stored like that because I paid a programmer to code it for me. Now, as I learn, I see it was not the best solution, but it is what I have till I learn more and it is working.

My problem is when using LIKE it returns both the 187 and 87 values

    $getTeams = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM teams 
    WHERE (team_tourney_vector LIKE '%$tid,S,P,,$tourney_start_date%' 
    OR team_tourney_vector LIKE '%$tid,S,,,$tourney_start_date%') 
    AND division='$division'");

I tried this using FIND_IN_SET()
but it would only return the the team id for this string

187,S,,,09-21-2013:141,S,,,06-21-2013:144,S,,,05-24-2013

and does not find the team id for this string

145,S,,,07-12-2013:142,S,,,05-24-2013:187,S,,,09-21-2013

   SELECT * FROM teams WHERE FIND_IN_SET('187',team_tourney_vector) AND (team_tourney_vector LIKE '%S,,,09-21-2013%')

Any thoughts on how to achieve this?

Answer 1

Here is my solution to the problem above using RLIKE

    $tourney_start_date=date('m-d-Y', strtotime($tourney_start_date));
    $vector = '"'.$tid.',S,,,'.$tourney_start_date.'"';
    $getTeams = mysql_query("
    SELECT * FROM `teams` 
    WHERE `team_tourney_vector` 
    RLIKE $vector 
    AND division='$division'");