Question

I have a MySQL database with 3 columns:

id  |  articletitle  | articleorganization

And a simple PHP form with 2 fields and a submit button: search.php

<div class="content">
    <form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="searchdb.php">
    <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="6">
    <tr>
      <td width="29%" align="right">Article Title:</td>
      <td width="71%" align="left"><input name="title" type="text" id="articletitle" size="50" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td align="right">Author or Organization:</td>
      <td align="left"><input name="organization" type="text" id="articleorganization" size="50" /></td>
    </tr>
      </table>


    <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="6">
      <tr>
        <td><input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /></td>
        </tr>
    </table>
    </form>
</div>

The form connects to searchdb.php:

<?php

include('settings.php');

$title = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['title']);
$organization = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['organization']);

$sql = "SELECT * FROM articles WHERE 1 "
     . (isset($title) ? "AND articletitle LIKE '$title%' " : "")
     . (isset($organization) ? "AND articleorganization LIKE '$organization%'" : "");

while ($row = mysql_query($sql)){
    echo '<br/> Article Title: '.$row['articletitle'];
    echo '<br/> Article Organization: '.$row['articleorganization'];
    echo '<td><a href="edit.php?id=' . $row['id'] . '">Edit</a></td>';
    echo '<td><a href="delete.php?id=' . $row['id'] . '">Delete</a></td>';
    echo '<td><a href="entry.php?id=' . $row['id'] . '">View Full Entry</a></td>';
    echo '<br/><br/>';
    }

?>

After some revision with the help of commenters the problem has changed.

Now, upon submitting a search, the results page begins scrolling the table that is created via searchdb.php over and over again, though without any results in the table.

Answer 1

$_POST[term] becomes an array with key’s like 0,1. Loosing the field reference for your SQL query.

Use these names in your input fields:

<input name="articletitle" type="text" id="articletitle" size="50" />
<input name="articleorganization" type="text" id="articleorganization" size="50" />

You can build your query like this:

$sql = mysql_query("select * from articles WHERE articletitle LIKE '%".mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['articletitle'])."%' OR articleorganization LIKE '%".mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['articleorganization'])."%'");

Note: Never ever use $_POST (user input) vars in a query without escaping first to prevent mysql injection.

PS My personal taste on indenting is: Always indent every block of matching HTML elements. So yes, I would indent the table one tab further.