How to Create a Search Feature with PHP and MySQL

Developing a robust, interactive and engaging Web site involves many different avenues, such as interactive pop-out menu’s using dynamic JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), complex maps that allows visitors to rollover individual sections for detailed information, forms designed and formatted with CSS and are programmed to collect and send visitor feedback to a specified recipient.

Other features could include: database driven pages that display a current member directory, a customized blog section that enables administrators to manage postings and allow random users in coordination with CAPTCHA techniques to post remarks to an article. Arguably, one of the most popular features of any database driven site is a searchable form feature that allows anyone to search for current staff members of an organization and find additional information, such as their email address or phone number.

In this article, you'll learn how to create a searchable form feature that will query a database table and display current staff member information. During the analysis you'll learn how to do the following: create a database table that will hold current staff listings, create a search form and use PHP, in coordination with Structured Query Language (SQL) to capture information entered by the visitor and append the information to display the results we want to show.

Additionally, you'll learn about ddesign patterns with the searchable form including security through code to ensure that only certain input is entered before performing operations on your database table and ways to pass state information through the address bar to display additional information about staff members.

source : http://www.webreference.com/programming/php/search/