What are the limitations of using LIKE with wildcards for search queries in PHP and how can they be overcome for better performance?

Using LIKE with wildcards in search queries can be inefficient for large datasets because it does not utilize indexes effectively. To overcome this limitation and improve performance, it is recommended to use full-text search capabilities provided by databases like MySQL. Full-text search indexes are optimized for searching large amounts of text data efficiently. 

// Example of using full-text search in MySQL with PDO in PHP

$searchTerm = "example";
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE MATCH(column_name) AGAINST(:searchTerm IN BOOLEAN MODE)");
$stmt->bindParam(':searchTerm', $searchTerm);
$stmt->execute();

while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
    // Process search results
}

Keywords

LIKE wildcards search queries limitations performance

Related Questions