Using OR in LIKE Query in MySQL to compare multiple fields

Question

I always thought that you could use OR in a LIKE statment to query things in MySQL. So, if I wanted to compare multiple fields in a row to 1 keyword or term:

SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Column1 OR Column2 LIKE '%keyword%'; 

and if I had an array of words to compare:

SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Column1 OR Column2 LIKE '%keyword1%' 
AND Column1 OR Column2 LIKE '%keyword2%';

I don't believe that syntax is correct, however. Is there an efficient method of writing this aside from something like:

SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Column1 LIKE '%keyword1%' OR Column2 LIKE 
'%keyword1%' AND Column1 LIKE '%keyword2%' OR Column2 LIKE '%keyword2%';

Am I going about this correctly?

Answer 1

Use this::

SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE (Column1 LIKE '%keyword1%' OR Column2 LIKE 
'%keyword1%') AND (Column1 LIKE '%keyword2%' OR Column2 LIKE '%keyword2%');

Answer 2

The closest to the syntax you are desiring is:

SELECT * FROM MyTable
WHERE (CONCAT(Column1, Column2) LIKE '%keyword1%')
AND (CONCAT(Column1, Column2) LIKE '%keyword2%')

Note: that the "%" at the start of your search string precludes the use of indexes. If there are any large number of records to search, it would be best to rethink the implementation.