MySQL name LIKE '%#attributes.q#%' --- Doesn't return result for an exact match?

Question

I have the following MySQL query:

SELECT  *
FROM    customer
WHERE   
fName LIKE '%#attributes.q#%' AND deleted = 'N'
OR 
lName LIKE '%#attributes.q#%' AND deleted = 'N'

This works fine for guesses, but if you provide an exact match: "Bill Clinton" fname=bill lname = clinton to the query above you get 0 results? where bill clint gives results.

How can this query be updated to say find LIKE result and EQUAL TO results?

Answer 1

Hard to tell from your question, but I'm guessing your customers table will look something like:

id    fName    lName      deleted
---------------------------------
1     John     Doe        N
2     Bill     Clinton    N
3     Fred     Smith      N
4     George   Bush       Y

Your query, as you've stated it in your question, will never work, as it will look like this:

SELECT *
FROM customer
WHERE fname LIKE '%Bill Clinton%' AND deleted = 'N'
OR
  lName LIKE '%Bill Clinton%' AND deleted = 'N'

There are no records in the table where the fName OR lName fields contain "Bill Clinton"

You would have to massage your #attributes.q# text so it'll generate something like this:

SELECT *
FROM customer
WHERE ((fName LIKE '%Bill%') OR (fName LIKE '%Clinton%')) AND deleted = 'N'
OR
   ((lName LIKE '%Bill%') etc.....

LIKE comparisons are very much like using wildcards in filenames. They won't split up a block of text for you, but will tell you if a chunk of text exists, verbatim, inside another chunk of text.

I think what you need is a FULLTEXT search, which will consider individual words in a query string and return results. Of course, FULLTEXT is only available on MyISAM table types, so if you're using InnoDB or some other type, you're out of luck.