[SOLVED] Adding wildcards to "WHERE equals" condition does not provide LIKE behavior in CodeIgniter query

Adding wildcards to "WHERE equals" condition does not provide LIKE behavior in CodeIgniter query

I am trying to make a search box which will take three parameters and will list all the products related to them. But the like wild card is not working. My code is as follow:

public function search($textstring, $category, $college, $limit, $offset)
{
    $sql = "SELECT * FROM ads WHERE Category = ? AND College_id = ? AND 
        AdTitle = ?";

    $query = $this->db->limit($limit, $offset)
        ->query($sql, array($category, $college, '%' . $textstring . '%'));
    echo "<pre>";
        print_r($query);
        print_r($textstring);
    echo "</pre>";              

    return $query->result_array();
}

When I search for college and category parameters it works, but when I include text string it is not working.

Solution

Change = to Like, like below in your query

 $sql = "SELECT * FROM ads WHERE Category = ? AND College_id = ? AND 
        AdTitle LIKE ?";