Create Search Form with PHP


2020-10-29 PHP Web

GOAL

Today’s goal is to create search form to find the name from the database.

Environment

Windows10
XAMPP 7.4.10

Method

This is an adjusted version of the code in “Access MySQL with PHP in XAMPP“. So please check the article first.

Search form

Use post method and the form is named “word” as below.

<form action="" method="POST">
    <label>Name：</label>
    <input type="text" name="word" />　<input type="submit" value="Search" />
</form>

Connect database

Connect database according to “Access MySQL with PHP in XAMPP“.

<?php
    $dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=photo_sharing';
    $username = 'root';
    $password = '********';

    if ($_POST) { // when the word is submitted
            $dbh = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);
            $search_word = $_POST['word'];
            // execute sql and get data here

Get and display the result

SQL

Use select statement to get data from the database. In this case, use pattern matching by LIKE operator to get the item whose name starts with input word. (reference: SQL WHERE LIKE Statement)

$sql ="select * from user where name like '".$search_word."%'";
$sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$sth->execute();
$result = $sth->fetchAll();
if($result){
    foreach ($result as $row) {
        echo $row['name']." ";
        echo $row['age'];
        echo "<br />";
    }
}
else{
    echo "not found";
}

Code

The following is the completed code.

index.php

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>test</title>
</head>
<body>
    <div>Search user name</div>
    <form action="" method="POST">
        <label>Name：</label>
        <input type="text" name="word" />　<input type="submit" value="Search" />
    </form>
    <?php
    $dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=photo_sharing';
    $username = 'root';
    $password = '********';

    if ($_POST) {
        try {
            $dbh = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);
            $search_word = $_POST['word'];
            if($search_word==""){
              echo "input search word";
            }
            else{
                $sql ="select * from user where name like '".$search_word."%'";
                $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
                $sth->execute();
                $result = $sth->fetchAll();
                if($result){
                    foreach ($result as $row) {
                        echo $row['name']." ";
                        echo $row['age'];
                        echo "<br />";
                    }
                }
                else{
                    echo "not found";
                }
            }
        }catch (PDOException $e) {
            echo  "<p>Failed : " . $e->getMessage()."</p>";
            exit();
        }
    }
    ?>
</body>
</html>

Result