Question

Records which contain an ampersand (&) are not returned by MySQL (connected to via PHP), but the same query works fine in phpMyAdmin. I am not sure if it is a collate/charset problem. Here is the sample query:

SELECT distinct(pcs.shop_name) AS shopName 
FROM shops AS ps 
LEFT JOIN category_shop AS cs 
   ON ps.shop_id = cs.shop_id 
WHERE 1=1 
   AND (ps.shop_name LIKE '%P&G%') 
   AND ps.is_active!=2 
ORDER BY ps.shop_display_name ASC

The shop_name I am trying to search for is P&G.

Answer 1

Try this (i guess You are using GET to submit a form if You have problem with ampersand):

$shop_name = urlencode('P&G');

on Your page for that field values (this means You call urlencode for every field value when generating form). Then after a GET is done, simply do:

$shop_name = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['shop_name']);
$query = "SELECT distinct(pcs.shop_name) as shopName 
    FROM shops AS ps 
    LEFT JOIN category_shop AS cs ON ps.shop_id = cs.shop_id 
    WHERE 1=1 
        AND (ps.shop_name LIKE '%{$shop_name}%') 
        AND ps.is_active!=2 
    ORDER BY ps.shop_display_name ASC";

Does this work for You?