Simple PHP search in Database won't bring up result - php

Question

I am building a recipe database with some of my friends and for that we need our users to be able to search within our site. Our database consists of 3 tables:
recipes - recipe_id (primary key), recipe_name
ingredients - ingredient_id (primary key), ingredient_name
recipe_ingredients - ingredient_id (foreign key), recipe_id (foreign key)
We want to be able to search the recipe_ingredients for a recipe or ingredient name and have our site show every ingredient connected to that recipe or every recipe connected to that ingredient. And so we made this query:
select ingredient_name, recipe_name, recipe_ingredients.*
from recipe_ingredients
inner join ingredients inner join recipes
on recipe_ingredients.ingredient_id = ingredients.ingredient_id
and recipe_ingredients.recipe_id = recipes.recipe_id
WHERE ingredient_name = 'Brød';
Which works fine for us. However, putting it into our search function in php, it gives 'There were no search results!' back every single time no matter what we searched. Here is the code. Would someone point out the mistake we made?
$output = '';
if (isset($_POST['work'])) {
$searchq = $_POST['work'];
$searchq = preg_replace("#[^0-9a-z]#i","",$searchq);
$query = mysql_query
("select ingredient_name, recipe_name, recipe_ingredients.*
from recipe_ingredients
inner join ingredients inner join recipes
on recipe_ingredients.ingredient_id = ingredients.ingredient_id
and recipe_ingredients.recipe_id = recipes.recipe_id
WHERE ingredient_name LIKE '%searchq%' or recipe_name LIKE '%searchq%'")
or die ("Could not search");
$count = mysql_num_rows($query);
if($count == 0){
$output = 'There were no search results!';
}
else{
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)) {
$recipe = $row[recipe_name];
$ingredient = $row[ingredient_name];
$id = $row[ingredient_id];
$output .= '<div>'.$recipe.' '.$ingredient.'</div>';
}
}
}
We don't understand why it won't work.

Answer 1

You can try the following. It uses mysqli_* functions and a better structure for the query joins.
$connection = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'root', 'your_password', 'your_database');
mysqli_set_charset($connection, 'utf8');
if (!$connection) {
die("Database connection failed: " . mysqli_error());
}
$output = '';
if (isset($_POST['work'])) {
$searchq = $_POST['work'];
$searchq = preg_replace("#[^0-9a-z]#i", "", $searchq);
$sql = "
SELECT ingredient_name, recipe_name, recipe_ingredients.*
FROM recipe_ingredients
INNER JOIN ingredients
ON recipe_ingredients.ingredient_id = ingredients.ingredient_id
INNER JOIN recipes
ON recipe_ingredients.recipe_id = recipes.recipe_id
WHERE ingredient_name LIKE '%$searchq%' or recipe_name LIKE '%$searchq%'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $sql);
if (!$result) {
die("SQL Error: " . mysqli_error($connection);
}
$count = mysqli_num_rows($result);
if ($count == 0) {
$output = 'There were no search results!';
} else {
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {
$recipe = $row[recipe_name];
$ingredient = $row[ingredient_name];
$id = $row[ingredient_id];
$output .= '<div>'.$recipe.' '.$ingredient.'</div>';
}
}
}

Answer 2

First - it depends on what version of PHP you are using, as Jens pointed out mysql_* has been deprecated.
Second - it does not appear that you are connecting to your database. You have to connect to your database first, then execute your query.
Check out this example on PHP's website, it should help you out a lot.
Good luck!

Answer 3

It seems like you re searching for "searchq" all the time and you probably dont have a recipe by that name and I would advise agajnst mysql_* funcs
$output = '';
if (isset($_POST['work'])) {
$searchq = $_POST['work'];
$searchq = preg_replace("#[^0-9a-z]#
i","",$searchq);
$query = mysql_query
("select ingredient_name, recipe_name, recipe_ingredients.*
from recipe_ingredients
inner join ingredients inner join recipes
on recipe_ingredients.ingredient_id = ingredients.ingredient_id
and recipe_ingredients.recipe_id = recipes.recipe_id
WHERE ingredient_name LIKE '%
$searchq%' or recipe_name LIKE '%
$searchq%'")