Question

I want to only display 5 results from my database with my PHP search script. How can I do this?

My PHP code is:

<?php

mysql_connect("localhost","username","password");
mysql_select_db("database");

if(!empty($_GET['q'])){
   $query= mysql_real_escape_string(trim($_GET['q']));
}

$searchSQL = "SELECT * FROM links WHERE `title` LIKE '%{$query}%'";
$searchResult = mysql_query($searchSQL);

while ($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($searchResult)){
    $results[] = "<div class='webresult'><div class='title'><a href='{$row['url']}'>{$row['title']}</a></div><div class='desc'>{$row['description']}</div><div class='url'>{$row['url']}</div></div>";
}

echo implode($results); 
?>

Answer 1

<?php

$database=mysql_connect("localhost","username","password");
mysql_select_db("database");

if(!empty($_GET['q'])){
    $query= mysql_real_escape_string(trim($_GET['q']));
    $searchSQL = "SELECT * FROM links WHERE `title` LIKE '%{$query}%' LIMIT 0,5";
    //                                                                .^.
    //                                        add a limit clause here. |
    $searchResult = mysql_query($searchSQL);

    while ($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($searchResult)){
        $results[] = "<div class='webresult'><div class='title'><a href='{$row['url']}'>{$row['title']}</a></div><div class='desc'>{$row['description']}</div><div class='url'>{$row['url']}</div></div>";
    }

    echo implode($results); 
}
?>

1. Solution: Add a LIMIT clause to your query, in order to limit the number of the returned results.

2. Suggestion: Place your database querying code inside the if clause, because this way you will avoid troubles of the GLOBAL variables kind.