Entry

Re: mySQL/PHP search - Is there a faster alternative to the 'like' query? Thanks!

Apr 10th, 2004 08:15
Matt Chatterley, Mark Hermansen,

Maybe - it depends on exactly what you want to achieve.
One good thing to know is that indexes will only be used (I believe) if
you do not have a % at the start of the string you are trying to match,
i.e. LIKE 'fred%' will use available indexes (if any exist), while LIKE
'%fred%' will not.
You may also be able to use the function FIND_IN_SET to speed things up
if you are comparing words (or part words) which are in a column to a
longer string E.G: FIND_IN_SET('fred', 'fred,the,goldfish') should return 1.