Search query shows all records when searching in two columns and search word is empty

Question

I am having an issue with a query I am using.

There are two things to search for, a category and a searchword, category searches within a category column in my database,

Answer 1

Your problem is in operator precedence in your WHERE clause. At present, when $trefwoord is empty, your WHERE clause looks like this:

WHERE cnt.title LIKE '%%' OR
      cnt.introtext LIKE '%%' AND 
      cat.alias LIKE 'something'

This is evaluated as

WHERE cnt.title LIKE '%%' OR
      (cnt.introtext LIKE '%%' AND cat.alias LIKE 'something')

which will always be true (cnt.title LIKE '%%' will always match). You need to resolve this by using parentheses appropriately, so the WHERE clause looks like

WHERE (cnt.title LIKE '%%' OR cnt.introtext LIKE '%%') AND 
      cat.alias LIKE 'something'

So, in your PHP write:

WHERE (cnt.title LIKE '%".$conn->real_escape_string($trefwoord)."%' OR
cnt.introtext LIKE '%".$conn->real_escape_string($trefwoord)."%')
".$branchequery."