How to search based on two cell values - php

Question

I am using a search box to find entries in my database.
One column contains the title / name of the thing being looked for.
Then I have a second column which gives a short description as applicable (few words usually)
I am trying to search (with the search box) to match either one or even both of the cells combined. Is that possible, and if yes, how?
You can see my code below which kind of shows what I try to achieve, but in any case, let me illustrate this a bit:
Example:
Database.title = "towel"
Database.description = "red, small"
Now, if I type into my search box "tow%red" I want to find the item.
It obviously does not find it, because the title does not contain "red". But if I search for "towel" only, it might show me different items based on different sizes, colors, or other attributes and the list becomes too long.
Of course I also want to be able to simply search for "%red%small% and still be able to find it, or just search for "towel".
Here is my php code that does the search:
if ( !isset($_REQUEST['term']) ) {
exit;
}
$search = mysql_real_escape_string($_REQUEST['term']);
$queryString = "SELECT * FROM items WHERE title+description LIKE '%{$search}%'";
$query = mysql_query($queryString);
$data = array();
if ( $query && mysql_num_rows($query) )
{
while( $row = mysql_fetch_array($query, MYSQL_ASSOC) )
{
$label = $row['title'];
if ($row['description']) {
$label .= ' — '. $row['description'];
}
$data[] = array(
'label' => $label,
'value' => $row['code']
);
}
}
echo json_encode($data);
flush();
I know the above is not going to work, I just put it that way to make clear what I want.
The working code contains this line instead:
$queryString = "SELECT * FROM items WHERE title LIKE '%{$search}%'";

Answer 1

Add a FULLTEXT (see documentation here) index to title and description.
ALTER TABLE items
ADD FULLTEXT INDEX items_index
(title, description);
This will let you search those colums.
Then build a query like this:
SELECT *
FROM items
WHERE MATCH(title, description)
AGAINST ('SEARCH KEYWORD HERE' IN BOOLEAN MODE);

Answer 2

I don't know if that would help you but
"SELECT * FROM items WHERE CONCAT(title, '', description) LIKE '%{$search}%'";

Answer 3

seems simple unless i'm missing something:
$queryString = "SELECT * FROM items WHERE title LIKE '%{$search}%' OR description LIKE '%{$search}%'";

Answer 4

have you tried this.....?
SELECT * FROM items WHERE `title` LIKE '%{$search}%' OR `description` LIKE '%{$search}%'