Question

I have an ajax-search on a mysql-db. Example: Search for “man” which I query with:

SELECT id FROM table WHERE name LIKE '%man%;

I now want to sort the result to have all results starting with the search in alphabetical order:

man
mankind

after that I want to have all results width the search INSIDE in alphabetical order, like:

iron man
woman

How can I do that?

Answer 1

You can order by the position of your search term in the string:

SELECT id 
FROM table 
WHERE name LIKE '%man%'
ORDER BY INSTR(name, 'man'), name

See also: INSTR(), LOCATE()

You could also change the expression to only distinguish between start of the string or anywhere else:

ORDER BY IF(INSTR(name, 'man'), 1, 0)