I've got about 20,000 rows in an INNODB table called 'cards', so FULLTEXT is not an option.
Please consider this table:
id | name | description
----------------------------------------------------------
1 John Smith Just some dude
2 Ted Johnson Another dude
3 Johnathan Todd This guy too
4 Susan Smith Her too
5 Sam John Bond And him
6 John Smith Same guy as num 1, another record
7 John Adams Last guy, promise
So, say the user searches for 'John', I want the result set to be in the order of:
7 John Adams
6 John Smith
3 Johnathan Todd
5 Sam John Bond
2 Ted Johnson
Please note that we've only pulled 'John Smith' once, we took his most recent entry. Due to my data, all names are for the same exact person, no need to worry about 2 different guys named John Smith. Ideas? Let me know if I can clarify anything.
version 1:
SELECT max(id) id, name
FROM cards
WHERE name like '%John%'
GROUP BY name
ORDER BY CASE WHEN name like 'John %' THEN 0
WHEN name like 'John%' THEN 1
WHEN name like '% John%' THEN 2
ELSE 3
END, name
version 2:
SELECT max(id) id, name
FROM cards
WHERE name like '%John%'
GROUP BY name
ORDER BY CASE WHEN name like 'John%' THEN 0
WHEN name like '% %John% %' THEN 1
WHEN name like '%John' THEN 2
ELSE 3
END, name