Combination of field search using PHP & MYSQL

Question

I am working on an assignment using PHP & MYSQL.

one of the tasks is to search on any combination of the fields. That includes Dropdown boxes populated from the

Answer 1

I've done something similar in the past where I checked the value from different fields and then added them to a series of arrays. I created an array for select, from, where, order. You can do similar for other sets like group or limit. Then I ran 'array_unique', imploded them and put them into the SQL string.

$array_select = array('users.Id'); // SET SOME DEFAULTS SO THE QUERY WILL ALWAYS RUN
$array_from = array('users');
$array_where = array();
$array_order = array();

if (isset($first_name)) {
    $array_select[] = 'First_Name';
    $array_from[] = 'users';
}

if (isset($city)) {
    $array_select[] = 'City';
    $array_from[] = 'user_contact';
    $array_where[] = 'users.Id = user_contact.City';
}

if ($array_select) {
    $array_select = array_unique($array_select);
    $string_select = implode(', ', $array_select);
}
if ($array_where) {
    $array_where = array_unique($array_where);
    $string_where = 'WHERE '.implode(' AND ', $array_where);
}
// REPEAT FOR OTHERS ...



// BUILD THE QUERY OUT
$sql = 'SELECT '.$string_select.' FROM '.$string_from.' '.$string_where.' ...