How can one improve the search functionality on a PHP forum to avoid issues like the one mentioned in the thread?

Issue: The search functionality on a PHP forum is not returning accurate results due to incorrect query handling or indexing issues. To improve the search functionality, we can implement a full-text search using MySQL's MATCH AGAINST feature and ensure that the search query is properly sanitized to prevent SQL injection attacks. 

// Implementing full-text search using MySQL's MATCH AGAINST feature
$search_query = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $_GET['search_query']);
$sql = "SELECT * FROM posts WHERE MATCH(post_content) AGAINST ('$search_query' IN BOOLEAN MODE)";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);

// Displaying search results
if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        echo $row['post_title'] . "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "No results found.";
}

Keywords

search functionality PHP forum optimization error handling performance tuning

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