Here is something you can do with Ajax, PHP and JQuery. Hope this helps or gives you a start. Check the mysql query in php. It matches the pattern starting from first.
See live demo and source code here.
http://purpledesign.in/blog/to-create-a-live-search-like-google/
Create a search box, may be an input field like this.
<input type="text" id="search" autocomplete="off">
Now we need listen to whatever the user types on the text area. For this we will use the jquery live() and the keyup event. On every keyup we have a jquery function “search” that will run a php script.
Suppose we have the html like this. We have an input field and a list to display the results.
<div class="icon"></div>
<input type="text" id="search" autocomplete="off">
<ul id="results"></ul>
We have a Jquery script that will listen to the keyup event on the input field and if it is not empty it will invoke the search() function. The search() function will run the php script and display the result on the same page using AJAX.
Here is the JQuery.
$(document).ready(function() {
// Icon Click Focus
$('div.icon').click(function(){
$('input#search').focus();
});
//Listen for the event
$("input#search").live("keyup", function(e) {
// Set Timeout
clearTimeout($.data(this, 'timer'));
// Set Search String
var search_string = $(this).val();
// Do Search
if (search_string == '') {
$("ul#results").fadeOut();
$('h4#results-text').fadeOut();
}else{
$("ul#results").fadeIn();
$('h4#results-text').fadeIn();
$(this).data('timer', setTimeout(search, 100));
};
});
// Live Search
// On Search Submit and Get Results
function search() {
var query_value = $('input#search').val();
$('b#search-string').html(query_value);
if(query_value !== ''){
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "search_st.php",
data: { query: query_value },
cache: false,
success: function(html){
$("ul#results").html(html);
}
});
}return false;
}
});
In the php, shoot a query to the mysql database. The php will return the results that will be put into the html using AJAX. Here the result is put into a html list.
Suppose there is a dummy database containing two tables animals and bird with two similar column names ‘type’ and ‘desc’.
//search.php
// Credentials
$dbhost = "localhost";
$dbname = "live";
$dbuser = "root";
$dbpass = "";
// Connection
global $tutorial_db;
$tutorial_db = new mysqli();
$tutorial_db->connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);
$tutorial_db->set_charset("utf8");
// Check Connection
if ($tutorial_db->connect_errno) {
printf("Connect failed: %s\n", $tutorial_db->connect_error);
exit();
$html = '';
$html .= '<li class="result">';
$html .= '<a target="_blank" href="urlString">';
$html .= '<h3>nameString</h3>';
$html .= '<h4>functionString</h4>';
$html .= '</a>';
$html .= '</li>';
$search_string = preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z0-9]/", " ", $_POST['query']);
$search_string = $tutorial_db->real_escape_string($search_string);
// Check Length More Than One Character
if (strlen($search_string) >= 1 && $search_string !== ' ') {
// Build Query
$query = "SELECT *
FROM animals
WHERE type REGEXP '^".$search_string."'
UNION ALL SELECT *
FROM birf
WHERE type REGEXP '^".$search_string."'"
;
$result = $tutorial_db->query($query);
while($results = $result->fetch_array()) {
$result_array[] = $results;
}
// Check If We Have Results
if (isset($result_array)) {
foreach ($result_array as $result) {
// Format Output Strings And Hightlight Matches
$display_function = preg_replace("/".$search_string."/i", "<b class='highlight'>".$search_string."</b>", $result['desc']);
$display_name = preg_replace("/".$search_string."/i", "<b class='highlight'>".$search_string."</b>", $result['type']);
$display_url = 'https://www.google.com/search?q='.urlencode($result['type']).'&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8';
// Insert Name
$output = str_replace('nameString', $display_name, $html);
// Insert Description
$output = str_replace('functionString', $display_function, $output);
// Insert URL
$output = str_replace('urlString', $display_url, $output);
// Output
echo($output);
}
}else{
// Format No Results Output
$output = str_replace('urlString', 'javascript:void(0);', $html);
$output = str_replace('nameString', '<b>No Results Found.</b>', $output);
$output = str_replace('functionString', 'Sorry :(', $output);
// Output
echo($output);
}
}
