title: Searching MySQL with PHP
body: <p>I am doing a project where I want a person to enter the name of any artist/band into a text box where it will seach my mysql database for the event information and display the results/content on another page. The code below is within my index.php where it should get the information from search.php (below also). I've looked all over and I'm not sure why it's not working and I can't figure out what to do. Help would be great! (I really need to pass this class!) :)</p>
  
  <p>(index.php)</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;form name="search" action="search.php" method="get"&gt;
      &lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;input type="text" name="q" /&gt;
      &lt;p&gt;&lt;input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Search" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;/form&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>(search.php)</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php
  
  //Get the search variable from URL
  
  $var=@&amp;_GET['q'];
  $trimmed=trim($var); //trim whitespace from the stored variable
  
  //rows to return
  $limit=10;
  
  //check for an empty string and display a message.
  if($trimmed=="")
      {
      echo"&lt;p&gt;Please enter a name.&lt;/p&gt;";
      exit;
      }
  
  //check for a search parameter
  if(!isset($var))
      {
      echo"&lt;p&gt;We don't seem to have a search parameter!&lt;/p&gt;";
      exit;
      }
  
  //connect to database
  mysql_connect("localhost","root","password");
  
  //specify database
  mysql_select_db("itour") or die("Unable to select database");
  
  //Build SQL Query
  $query = "select * from events where artist_name like \"%trimmed%\" order by date";
  
  $numresults=mysql_query($query);
  $numrows=mysql_num_rows(numresults);
  
  //If no results, offer a google search as an alternative
  
  if ($numrows==0)
      {
      echo"&lt;h3&gt;Results&lt;/h3&gt;";
      echo"&lt;p&gt;Sorry, your search: &amp;quot;" .$trimmed . "&amp;quot; returned zero results&lt;/p&gt;";
  
      //google
      echo"&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=\"http://www.google.com/search?q=".$trimmed . "\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Look up ".$trimmed ." on Google\"&gt;
      Click here&lt;/a&gt; to try the search on google&lt;/p&gt;";
      }
  
  //next determine if s has been passed to script, if not use 0
  if(empty($s)) {
      $s=0;
      }
  
  //get results
  $query .=" limit $s,$limit";
  $result = mysql_query($query) or die("Couldn't execute query");
  
  //display what was searched for
  echo"&lt;p&gt;You searched for: &amp;quot;" .$var . "&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;";
  
  //begin to show results set
  echo "Results";
  $count = 1 + $s;
  
  //able to display the results returned
  while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
  $title = $row["artist_name"];
  
  echo"$count.)&amp;nbsp;$title";
  $count++;
  }
  
  $currPage = (($s/$limit) + 1;
  
  echo"&lt;br  /&gt;";
  
  //links to other results
  if ($s&gt;=1){
      //bypass PREV link if s is 0
      $prevs=($s-$limit);
      print"&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=\"$PHP_SELF?s=$prevs&amp;q=$var\"&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;
      Prev 10&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;";
  }
  
  //calculate number of pages needing links
  $pages = intval($numrows/$limit);
  
  //$pages now contains int of pages needed unless there is a remainder from diviison
  
  if($numrows%$limit){
  //has remainder so add one page
  $pages++;
  }
  
  //check to see if last page
  if (!((($s+$limit)/$limit)==$pages) &amp;&amp; $pages!=1){
  
  //not last page so give NEXT link
  $news = $s+$limit;
  
  echo "&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=\"$PHP_SELF?s=$news&amp;q=$var\"&gt;Next 10 &amp;gt;&amp;gt;&lt;/a&gt;";
  }
  
  $a = $s +($limit);
  if($a &gt; $numrows){$a = $numrows;}
  $b = $s + 1;
  echo "&lt;p&gt;Showing results $b to $a of $numrows&lt;/p&gt;";
  
  ?&gt;
  </code></pre>