Re: How do I find products when a user types freeform strings like 'Sony 20" TV' or '20" Sony TV'?

[Baron Schwartz]

Hi Daevid,

Daevid Vincent wrote:
> I'm having trouble figuring out the logic/query I want.
> I know that all those "OR"s are not right.
> I'm doing this in PHP and mySQL (of course), 
> so if it can't be done with a single query, I can split it up.
> 
> Here's the challenge, given a text field search box, someone enters:
> 
> 	Sony 20" TV
> 
> How do I search for that, not knowing which fields are which?
> For example, they could have also entered:
> 
> 	20" Sony TV

I think you're describing full-text indexing.  MySQL supports it but only on MyISAM 
tables.  If you don't want to use MyISAM, full-text search engines like Lucene or 
Sphinx may be worth looking at.

Baron