Mysqli Prepared Statement with % wildcard

Question

Im am trying to build a dynamic prepared statement so that I can reuse the code. I am running into a problem when using %?% in my prepared state as it used LIKE. My code is as follows:

$where = " First_Name LIKE '%?%' ";
$vals = array('Mike');
$type = 's';

$dbd = mysqli_stmt_init($dbconnection);
if (mysqli_stmt_prepare($dbd, "SELECT * FROM Contacts WHERE $where" )) {
mysqli_stmt_bind_param($dbd, $type, ...$vals);
if (!mysqli_stmt_execute($dbd)) {
echo "Execute Error: " . mysqli_error($dbconnection);
        } else {
            //do nothing
        }
    } else {
        echo "Prep Error: " . mysqli_error($dbconnection);
    }
mysqli_stmt_get_result($dbd);

So when I use "First_Name = ?" it works fine so I think my issue is with the '%?%'. I have searched resolutions but couldn't find anything related to my dynamic prepared statement. Thank you for any help.

Answer 1

You need to bind the complete value, not just a portion of it. This means doing:

$where = "First_Name LIKE ?"

And then binding:

$vals = array('%Mike%');