Question

<?php
$search_input = $_POST["search_input"];

include_once("connection_to_db.php");

if(!isset($search_input))
{
    print("Nothing to search !");
    return;
}

//Queries products where the search input is similiar to the title, artist or format of a product
$query_search = "SELECT * FROM waxItem WHERE title OR artist LIKE  '%".$search_input."%'";

$query_search_result = mysql_query($query_search)
 or die(mysql_error());

$num_rows_search = mysql_num_rows($query_search_result);

?>        

The code above does not work when i add “OR artist”.

The code does work and search results are displayed when only one field is compared to the database records.

What am i doing wrong?

Answer 1

You cannot state the same LIKE criteria for multiple fields. You have to specify it per field. Even though you can do this but this is definitely not a recommended approach due to SQL Injection Attacks. Please read this SQL Injection

You have to change

    $query_search = "SELECT * FROM waxItem WHERE title OR artist 
LIKE  '%".$search_input."%'";

to

        $query_search = "SELECT * FROM waxItem WHERE title 
LIKE '%".$search_input."%' OR artist LIKE  '%".$search_input."%'";