Question

I want an easy way to search 2 fields in my database.
Here is the scenario: form has text box called name which can submit a value to search script.

Search script checks name against first and last name fields in database.

Problem I have come across is if people have enter middle names in the database under the first or last name field.

Example of the data i want to search

fname        lname
--------------------
stephen      jones
john james   doe
john         james doe

I thought could do a search like this:

SELECT
_leads.Firstname,
_leads.Lastname
FROM
_leads
WHERE
_leads.Firstname LIKE '%stephen jones%' OR
_leads.Lastname LIKE  '%stephen jones%'

Well I was hoping it would work.

My other attempt was going to be to explode the string then compare that against the database.

Am I looking too much into this? Is there any easy short bit of code that would help me out?

Answer 1

You can search like this:

WHERE CONCAT(first, ' ', last) LIKE '%John%Doe%'

That would find it even when there are middle names 🙂