Question

I was trying to query a database table by search keyword. My SQL is as follow:

SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE some_name LIKE '%$keyword%'

where $keyword is from PHP form POST data. The $keyword is already processed by real_escape_string function. I notice that it the $keyword is %, all records are selected. How can I search for the some_name field with % in the content?

Answer 1

You have to escape the literal %, as explained in the manual:

SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE some_name LIKE '%\%%';

EDIT: Also note that you should escape the _ character the same way, as that’s symbol for a single-character wild card.