Search text in fields in every table of a MySQL database

Question

I want to search in all fields from all tables of a MySQL database a given string, possibly using syntax as:

SELECT * FROM * WHERE * LIKE \'%stuff%\'
         


        

Answer 1

I modified the PHP answer of Olivier a bit to:

• print out the results in which the string was found
• omit tables without results
• also show output if column names match the search input

• show total number of results

  function searchAllDB($search){
      global $mysqli;
  
      $out = "";
      $total = 0;
      $sql = "SHOW TABLES";
      $rs = $mysqli->query($sql);
      if($rs->num_rows > 0){
          while($r = $rs->fetch_array()){
              $table = $r[0];
              $sql_search = "select * from ".$table." where ";
              $sql_search_fields = Array();
              $sql2 = "SHOW COLUMNS FROM ".$table;
              $rs2 = $mysqli->query($sql2);
              if($rs2->num_rows > 0){
                  while($r2 = $rs2->fetch_array()){
                      $colum = $r2[0];
                      $sql_search_fields[] = $colum." like('%".$search."%')";
                      if(strpos($colum,$search))
                      {
                          echo "FIELD NAME: ".$colum."\n";
                      }
                  }
                  $rs2->close();
              }
              $sql_search .= implode(" OR ", $sql_search_fields);
              $rs3 = $mysqli->query($sql_search);
              if($rs3 && $rs3->num_rows > 0)
              {
                  $out .= $table.": ".$rs3->num_rows."\n";
                  if($rs3->num_rows > 0){
                      $total += $rs3->num_rows;
                      $out.= print_r($rs3->fetch_all(),1);
                      $rs3->close();
                  }
              }
          }
          $out .= "\n\nTotal results:".$total;
          $rs->close();
      }
      return $out;
  }