Question

I have a simple php mysql search that searches a database, however, i cannot seem to get it to search the text from the search field and the category, but i only want it to search the category if selected,

this is my code that i have tried:

if ($search !== null){

    $sql = "SELECT * FROM people WHERE MATCH (lname,fname) AGAINST (:search IN BOOLEAN MODE) ORDER BY price ".$price." LIMIT ".$start.", ".$limit;

    $q   = $conn->prepare($sql) or die("failed!");
    // Bind the params to the placeholders
    $q->bindParam(':search', $search, PDO::PARAM_STR);
    $q->execute();
}


if ($search !== null && $category !== null){

    $sql = "SELECT * FROM people WHERE MATCH (lname,fname) AGAINST (:search IN BOOLEAN MODE) and category=:category ORDER BY price ".$price." LIMIT ".$start.", ".$limit;

    $q   = $conn->prepare($sql) or die("failed!");
    // Bind the params to the placeholders
    $q->bindParam(':search', $search, PDO::PARAM_STR);
    $q->bindParam(':category', $category, PDO::PARAM_STR);
    $q->execute();
}

however, this still ignores the category field option if selected! any ideas?

they are being set as follows:

   // Check and set category
$category = (!empty($_GET['category']) ? $_GET['category'] : null);

// Check and set search
if(!empty($_GET['search'])){
    $search = $_GET['search'];
}else{
    $search = null;
}

Answer 1

Do some debugging to make sure $search and $category are being set. That is most likely your problem. From the looks of it, $category should be getting set (since you said its coming from query string), but just check both to be sure. Something like:

if($category !== null)
    die("category = $category");
else {
    die("no category");
}
//do same test for $search

If users are accessing this page from a link (<a href="search.php?category=Books">Books?</a>), I don’t see how $_GET['search'] would be set.

I would suggest you change your if statements to be more efficient (only 1 should get executed):

if ($search !== null){
    if($category !== null){
        //query with category
    }
    else {
        //query w/o category
    }
}

Also, I would use isset() to check if these variables are instantiated instead of empty().