PHP & MySQL - How to count the number of records

Question

Okay so I have this web site search script and I'm trying to count how many records will be displayed when the user enters there search term or terms. I was wondering how would I be able to do this when i don't know what keywords will be entered?

Below is my search query.

Here is the part of my PHP & MySQL search code.

$search_explode = explode(" ", $search);

foreach($search_explode as $search_each) {
    $x++;
    if($x == 1){
        $construct .= "article_content LIKE '%$search_each%' OR title LIKE '%$search_each%' OR summary LIKE '%$search_each%'";
    } else {
        $construct .= "OR article_content LIKE '%$search_each%' OR title LIKE '%$search_each%' OR summary LIKE '%$search_each%'";
    }

}

$construct = "SELECT users.*, users_articles.* FROM users_articles
              INNER JOIN users ON users_articles.user_id = users.user_id
              WHERE $construct";

Here is the first error.

MySQL Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'SELECT users.*, users_articles.* FROM users_articles INNER JOIN users O' at line

Here is the second error.

Warning: mysqli_fetch_array() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli_result, boolean given

Answer 1

Store the part of your SQL query after FROM in a variable then you can use COUNT(*) to get the amount of rows:

$search_explode = explode(" ", $search);

foreach($search_explode as $search_each) {
    $x++;
    if($x == 1){
        $construct .= "article_content LIKE '%$search_each%' OR title LIKE '%$search_each%' OR summary LIKE '%$search_each%'";
    } else {
        $construct .= "OR article_content LIKE '%$search_each%' OR title LIKE '%$search_each%' OR summary LIKE '%$search_each%'";
    }

}

$from = "FROM users_articles
         INNER JOIN users ON users_articles.user_id = users.user_id
         WHERE $construct";

$count_query = "SELECT COUNT(*) " . $from;

$result = mysql_query($count_query);
$count_result = mysql_fetch_row($result);
$count = $count_result[0];

Answer 2

You might also want to take a look at mysql_num_rows()