How can the LIKE operator be correctly implemented in PHP when querying a MySQL database?

When using the LIKE operator in PHP to query a MySQL database, you need to properly format the query string with the % wildcard characters before and after the search term. This allows for partial matching of strings in the database. Make sure to sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection attacks. 

// Assuming $searchTerm contains the user input to search for
$searchTerm = $_POST['search_term']; // Example user input

// Sanitize the input
$searchTerm = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $searchTerm);

// Query to search for a specific term in a column using the LIKE operator
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name LIKE '%".$searchTerm."%'";

// Execute the query and fetch results
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);

Keywords

PHP LIKE operator MySQL database query implementation

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