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phpmysqlcodeigniterprepared-statementsql-like

How to use a LIKE query with CodeIgniter?

I want to run a query like this:

SELECT * FROM table WHERE field LIKE '%search_term%'

In CI you can bind parameters to queries, if you used field=? but this does not work for field LIKE "%?%". From debugging output it seems the query used is field LIKE "%'search'%".

Is there an alternative way to do searching in CodeIgniter?

Solution

  • You can use this query:

    SELECT * FROM table WHERE field LIKE ?

    And bind with %search% instead of search.

    You should be aware that this query will be slow in MySQL. You might want to look at free-text search instead (Lucene, Sphinx, or MySQL's built-in free-text search functions).