search database with php

[niahossain]

this page http://www.bdinfo.exofire.net/bds.html containes 2 search forms. i want them to search an access database. Someone told me that I should put the form action as, form action="search.php". But then I don't what to write in search.php. Can someone please guide me on how to go about it ? I don't know php, except for the basic things that I've picked up reading tutorials. However, I'm not a slow learner, if someone would give me the steps I should follow and a template or a sample php file that searches a database, I'm sure I can do it.

From what I've gathered so far, the first thing I'm supposed to make a connection to my database in the search.php...I don't know how to do this, and neither do I kno what to do afterwards. I need this done within a day or 2, please help me !

[ShannenName]

mysql_connect('localhost', 'mysql_user', 'mysql_password');

To make the connection to the database then the basic code should be

mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table WHERE table_name LIKE ('%{$_GET['search_name']}%')",$c);

As for the actual search page put this somewhere.

<form action='search.php' method='get'><input type='text' name='search_name' /><br /><input type='submit' value='Search' /></form>

[niahossain]

thank you ! but i keep reading abouy MySQL, but i don't how to use that. I read that php can also connect to databases made with MS Access. Is that true ? If so, how will I make the connection ??

And in my form, there are no textboxes, but pulldown menus ? this is the html code of my form :

 <form method="POST" action="search.php">  
<p>
  <select size="1" name="D1">
  <option>Almas</option>
  <option>Nandan</option>
  <option>Etc</option>
  </select><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="B1"><input type="reset" value="Reset" name="B2"></p>

so where do i put in, name="search_name" ???

[Slothie]

D1 would be your search name then

[niahossain]

thank u so so much, I'll try it out