let's say i have this mysql table structure
:
table : articles
----------------
id
content
table : news
------------
id
news
is there a way to search for a string in this two tables and then if the string occurs to return the table's name and the row id ?
Assuming that the two tables have the same datatypes for id and news/content then a query along the lines of
SELECT id, 'articles' as tablename
WHERE content like '%string to search for%'
UNION
SELECT id, 'news' as tablename
WHERE news like '%string to search for%'
Should give you the result you're after