Question

So I have this function to search entries in a MySQL database:

<?php
private function SearchContributors($search) 
    {
    $search_pieces = explode(' ', $search);

    if (count($search_pieces) == 1 )
        {
        $this->db->like('firstname', $search);
        $this->db->or_like('lastname', $search);   
        $result = $this->db->get(); //the line from the error message below
        }   
    
    //Other stuff for 2 and more pieces
    
    return $result;
    }
?>

I use the function on two occasions.

Case A is a user initiated search and gets the search query from the URL (domain.com/contributors/?x=paul). This works fine.

<?php
if (isset($_GET['x']))
    {
    $x = $_GET['x']; 
    $result = $this->SearchContributors($x);
    }
?>

Case B is a backup for when a user enters an invalid slug name (domain.com/contributors/paul instead of domain.com/contributors/pauline-surname) and gets the search query directly:

<?php
$this->db->where('slug', $slug);
$result = $this->db->get();    
if ($result->num_rows() == 0)
    {
    $x = str_replace('-', ' ', $slug);
    $result = $this->SearchContributors($x);
    }
?> 

This returned an MySQL syntax error:

Error Number: 1064

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘WHERE firstname LIKE ‘%paul%’ OR lastname LIKE ‘%paul%” at line 2

SELECT * WHERE firstname LIKE ‘%paul%’ OR lastname LIKE ‘%paul%’

Filename: /www/htdocs/w00a94ee/c/controllers/contributors.php

Line Number: 23

The function gets the very same string paul in both cases, so why doesn’t it work?

//EDIT

function __construct()
    {
    parent::__construct();
    $this->load->database('databasename');
    $this->db->from('tablename');
    }

Answer 1

You forgot to specify which table you want to select FROM.

$this->db->from('tablename');

EDIT: The problem is you are adding the from in your constructor, then you are calling:

$this->db->where('slug', $slug);
$result = $this->db->get();  

before calling SearchContributors. This runs the query and resets the variables.

So, when you call SearchContributors, FROM is no longer set.

You need to put $this->db->from('tablename'); inside SearchContributors and not the constructor. It’s usually a good idea to make model functions self-contained, and not require outside functions (such as __construct to call them).