making a search bar-but stuck

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inglorious

hi everyone,
can any one help me with this code

<?php
mysql_connect("localhost","root","") or die("could not connect");
mysql_select_db("databasetest") or die("could not find database");
$output = '';
//collect
if(isset($_POST['search'])){
	$searchq = $_POST['search'];
	$searchq = preg_replace("#[^0-9a-z]#i","",$searchq);

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM authors WHERE fname LIKE '%$searchq%$' OR lname LIKE '%$searchq%$'") or die("could not search");
$count = mysql_num_rows($query);
if($count == 0){
	 $output = 'there was no search result!';
	}else{
		while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)){
		   $firstname = $row['fname'];
		   $lastname  = $row['lname'];

		    $output .= '<div> '.$firstname.' '.$lastname.' </div>';
	 }

   }
}
?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>search</title>
<link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

<body>
 <form action="index.php" method="post">
    <input type="text" name="search" placeholder="search" />
    <input type="submit" value=">>"  /> 
  </form>

<?php print("$output");?>
</body>
</html>

please help
1.when i try to search, ther are no results displayed.

BezzzZ

can you try this and tell me what it gives you in the green block if you change the code to this :

<?php
  mysql_connect("localhost","root","") or die("could not connect");
  mysql_select_db("databasetest") or die("could not find database");

  $verboseMode = true;
  $output = ''; 

  if($verboseMode) echo '<div style="float:left; border:3px solid green; margin:50px 50px; padding:50px; color:green; font-family:Courier"><h1>VERBOSE MODE ON</h1>';
  if(isset($_POST['search'])){ 
	$searchq = $_POST['search'];
	$searchq = preg_replace("#[^0-9a-z]#i","",$searchq);  

  if($verboseMode){
    print_r($_POST);
    echo '<br /><b>searchq before preg_replace =</b> '.$_POST['search'];  

    echo '<br /><b>searchq after preg_replace =</b> '.$searchq;
	}

  $query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM authors WHERE fname LIKE '%$searchq%$' OR lname LIKE '%$searchq%$'") or die("could not search");
	$count = mysql_num_rows($query);
	if($count == 0){
		 $output = 'there was no search result!';
		}else{
			while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)){
			   $firstname = $row['fname'];
			   $lastname  = $row['lname'];

		    $output .= '<div> '.$firstname.' '.$lastname.' </div>';
	 }

   }
}
  if($verboseMode) echo '</div><div style="clear:both">&nbsp;</div>';
?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>search</title>
<link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

<body>
 <form action="testCode.php" method="post">
    <input type="text" name="search" placeholder="search" />
    <input type="submit" value=">>"  /> 
  </form>

<?php print("$output");?>
</body>
</html>

inglorious

if i search a name this is what i get

VERBOSE MODE ON
Array ( [search] => jack )
searchq before preg_replace = jack
searchq after preg_replace = jack

BezzzZ

okay great, so we have established that the post is working fine, can you run this now, this will tell us if the query to the database is running

<?php
  mysql_connect("localhost","root","") or die("could not connect");
  mysql_select_db("databasetest") or die("could not find database");

  $query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM authors") or die("could not search");
  while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query,MYSQL_ASSOC)){
    print_r($row);
    echo '<hr />';
  }
?>

inglorious

thanks for the quick reply man , this is the output
Array ( [fname] => jack [lname] => rogers )

Array ( [fname] => mark [lname] => winter )

Array ( [fname] => steve [lname] => buckner )

Array ( [fname] => peter [lname] => snow )

inglorious

hey thanks for that, i found what was wrong.
There is one more thing i cannot figure out how do i make the results of the database display as drop down list.