Query column for multiple values - php

Question

I have a table that looks somewhat like the one below, and I am doing a search query with multiple fields to refine a search for a job. At the moment I am able to enter into multiple fields, however, my search results query the entire database, not just for one specific ID.
Table:
contentId meta_key meta_value
1 1 vacancyType Hospitality
2 1 vacancyRole Chef
3 1 vacancyDate 2014-01-01
4 2 vacancyType Adin
5 2 vacancyArea St Albans
6 2 vacancyDate 2014-01-01
Code:
$getJobs1 = "SELECT distinct *
FROM cms_contentExtra, cms_content
WHERE cms_contentExtra.meta_value IN ('$type','$key')
AND cms_content.contentId = cms_contentExtra.contentId
GROUP BY cms_content.contentId";
$getJobs2 = mysql_query($getJobs1) or die("didn't query");
while ($getJobs3 = mysql_fetch_array($getJobs2)) {
echo ' - ' . $getJobs3[meta_value] . ' - ' . ' - ' . $getJobs3[contentId];
}
This will return:
- St Albans - - 8435 - St Albans - - 8436 - Hospitality & Catering - - 8437 - St Albans - - 8440 - Hospitality & Catering - - 8444 - Hospitality & Catering - - 8450 - Hospitality & Catering - - 8451 - St Albans - - 8453
However, I only want to show results that have BOTH the area and type, and disregard the others. At the moment it seems to be displaying the type and then displaying the area separately, so I am unable to show a type in a specific area.
I am using two tables to compare the contentId to more data stored in a different table.

Answer 1

The IN operand that you use is an OR operation.
Try to use LIKE such as:
WHERE cms_contentExtra.meta_value LIKE "%$type%$key%"
OR cms_contentExtra.meta_value LIKE "%$key%$type%"

Answer 2

Let's have a closer look at your query. You group by contentId. So you get one record per contentId. But you select *. (This must be MySQL, for I don't know any other dbms allowing this.) So you get the content record belonging to the content id, and one (random) cms_contentExtra record belonging to the content id. Then you use DISTINCT, so you only get distinct rows. But the rows must be distinct, because they differ at least in the content id. Having said this, your query doesn't make sense, and I recommend you look up GROUP BY and DISTINCT in a book or tutorial. (Moreover you shouldn't use comma-separated join syntax. That was replaced more than twenty years ago with explicit joins. Use INNER JOIN instead.) So far to this :-)
To clean things up for you, I lead you step by step. Maybe this is not exactly what you are looking for, but I think it will help you build the final query.
To get content IDs with the vacancy type $type:
select contentid
from cms_content
where meta_key = 'vacancyType' and meta_value = #type;
To get content IDs with the location $key:
select contentid
from cms_content
where meta_key = 'vacancyArea' and meta_value = #key;
To get content IDs that match $type or $key:
select distinct contentid
from cms_content
where (meta_key = 'vacancyType' and meta_value = #type)
or (meta_key = 'vacancyArea' and meta_value = #key);
To get content IDs that match both $type and $key:
select contentid
from cms_content
where (meta_key = 'vacancyType' and meta_value = #type)
or (meta_key = 'vacancyArea' and meta_value = #key)
group by contentid
having count(*) = 2;