jquery php live search

Question

ive got working live search with ajax and php

JQUERY:

$("#search").keyup(function()   {
   var search_input = $(this).val();
   var dataString = 'keyword='+ search_input;
      if(search_input.length>1){
    $.ajax({
      type: "GET",
      url: "include/search.php?diary_date",
      data: dataString,
      beforeSend:  function() {
             $('#loading').addClass('loading');
          }, success: function(server_response) {                 
               $('#searchresultdata').html(server_response).show();
           $('span#faq_category_title').html(search_input);
    }
});
}return false;
});

PHP:

$q = "SELECT id_user, f_name, l_name, postcode, email,telp FROM user 
WHERE f_name LIKE '%$keyword%' 
OR l_name LIKE '%$keyword%'
OR email LIKE '%$keyword%'
OR postcode LIKE '%$keyword%'";

i want the search result, search from the first letter not from the middle or last for example:
keyword = JO
Result i want =
* JOHN BECKS
* JONATHAN WILKO * KATY JOANS

for a moment the system pick up not only first even middle & last words
* TONY NESJO
* BAJOZ ZACKS

Answer 1

Just remove the first % from each of your LIKE strings.

$q = "SELECT id_user, f_name, l_name, postcode, email,telp FROM user 
WHERE f_name LIKE '$keyword%' 
OR l_name LIKE '$keyword%'
OR email LIKE '$keyword%'
OR postcode LIKE '$keyword%'";

That said, you should really, really investigate using PDO or similar and sending a bound query, where each parameter gets properly escaped to prevent SQL injection attacks.

If you do that the SQL gets slightly more complicated, though, because you can't bind a parameter inside a string, so the addition of the % has to be done as a SQL concatenation:

$q = "SELECT id_user, f_name, l_name, postcode, email,telp FROM user 
WHERE f_name LIKE CONCAT(?, '%')
OR l_name LIKE CONCAT(?, '%')
OR email LIKE CONCAT(?, '%')
OR postcode LIKE CONCAT(?, '%')";

(then produce a prepared statement handle and execute with the appropriate parameters - you'll find plenty of examples else where on Stackoverflow).

Answer 2

You can use REGEXP operator like so:

$q = "SELECT id_user, f_name, l_name, postcode, email,telp FROM user 
WHERE f_name REGEXP '^$keyword' 
OR l_name REGEXP '^$keyword'
OR email REGEXP '^$keyword'
OR postcode REGEXP '^$keyword'";