MySQL search case insensitive

Question

i have a code and its responsible for the search field to search for data in mysql table. issue is its case sensitive, i have looked at the author site and somewhere they suggest to change from LIKE to ILIKE, however this causes search not to work

/* 
 * Filtering
 * NOTE this does not match the built-in DataTables filtering which does it
 * word by word on any field. It's possible to do here, but concerned about efficiency
 * on very large tables, and MySQL's regex functionality is very limited
 */
$sWhere = "";
if ( isset($_GET['sSearch']) && $_GET['sSearch'] != "" )
{
    $sWhere = "WHERE (";
    for ( $i=0 ; $i<count($aColumns) ; $i++ )
    {
        if ( isset($_GET['bSearchable_'.$i]) && $_GET['bSearchable_'.$i] == "true" )
        {
            $sWhere .= "`".$aColumns[$i]."` LIKE '%".mysql_real_escape_string( $_GET['sSearch'] )."%' OR ";
        }
    }
    $sWhere = substr_replace( $sWhere, "", -3 );
    $sWhere .= ')';
}

/* Individual column filtering */
for ( $i=0 ; $i<count($aColumns) ; $i++ )
{
    if ( isset($_GET['bSearchable_'.$i]) && $_GET['bSearchable_'.$i] == "true" && $_GET['sSearch_'.$i] != '' )
    {
        if ( $sWhere == "" )
        {
            $sWhere = "WHERE ";
        }
        else
        {
            $sWhere .= " AND ";
        }
        $sWhere .= "`".$aColumns[$i]."` LIKE '%".mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['sSearch_'.$i])."%' ";
    }
}

Answer 1

/* 
 * Filtering
 * NOTE this does not match the built-in DataTables filtering which does it
 * word by word on any field. It's possible to do here, but concerned about efficiency
 * on very large tables, and MySQL's regex functionality is very limited
 */
$sWhere = "";
if ( isset($_GET['sSearch']) && $_GET['sSearch'] != "" )
{
    $sWhere = "WHERE (";
    for ( $i=0 ; $i<count($aColumns) ; $i++ )
    {
        if ( isset($_GET['bSearchable_'.$i]) && $_GET['bSearchable_'.$i] == "true" )
        {
            $sWhere .= "UPPER(`".$aColumns[$i]."`) LIKE '%".strtoupper(mysql_real_escape_string( $_GET['sSearch'] ))."%' OR ";
        }
    }
    $sWhere = substr_replace( $sWhere, "", -3 );
    $sWhere .= ')';
}

/* Individual column filtering */
for ( $i=0 ; $i<count($aColumns) ; $i++ )
{
    if ( isset($_GET['bSearchable_'.$i]) && $_GET['bSearchable_'.$i] == "true" && $_GET['sSearch_'.$i] != '' )
    {
        if ( $sWhere == "" )
        {
            $sWhere = "WHERE ";
        }
        else
        {
            $sWhere .= " AND ";
        }
        $sWhere .= "UPPER(`".$aColumns[$i]."`) LIKE '%".strtoupper(mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['sSearch_'.$i]))."%' ";
    }
}

Answer 2

WHERE UPPER(column_name) LIKE '%" . strtoupper(string). "%'

Answer 3

If you have a case-insensitive collation (which default collations typically are), then your searches will be case insensitive by default.

Answer 4

Give this a try:

/* 
 * Filtering
 * NOTE this does not match the built-in DataTables filtering which does it
 * word by word on any field. It's possible to do here, but concerned about efficiency
 * on very large tables, and MySQL's regex functionality is very limited
 */
$sWhere = "";
if ( isset($_GET['sSearch']) && $_GET['sSearch'] != "" )
{
    $sWhere = "WHERE (";
    for ( $i=0 ; $i<count($aColumns) ; $i++ )
    {
        if ( isset($_GET['bSearchable_'.$i]) && $_GET['bSearchable_'.$i] == "true" )
        {
            $sWhere .= "UCASE(`".$aColumns[$i]."`) LIKE '%UCASE(".mysql_real_escape_string( $_GET['sSearch'] ).")%' OR ";
        }
    }
    $sWhere = substr_replace( $sWhere, "", -3 );
    $sWhere .= ')';
}

/* Individual column filtering */
for ( $i=0 ; $i<count($aColumns) ; $i++ )
{
    if ( isset($_GET['bSearchable_'.$i]) && $_GET['bSearchable_'.$i] == "true" && $_GET['sSearch_'.$i] != '' )
    {
        if ( $sWhere == "" )
        {
            $sWhere = "WHERE ";
        }
        else
        {
            $sWhere .= " AND ";
        }
        $sWhere .= "UCASE(`".$aColumns[$i]."`) LIKE '%UCASE(".mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['sSearch_'.$i]).")%' ";
    }
}