PHP SQL prepared select query not returning anything

Question

When I run the code below, it returns nothing. When I explicitly type a string in the place of the '?', it will return the expected result but using the prepared version has not worked for me thus far. I do not believe there is any kind of versioning issue as using prepared statements for INSERT queries has worked for me in the past. What might be the problem here with the prepared statement?

$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database", $user, $pass);
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE column LIKE '%?%';";
$stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute(array($_GET['searchterm']));
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();
print_r($results);

Answer 1

You are preparing the value so it isn't behaving as if you just put the string inside of the query.

When preparing a string you don't need to add " or ' , that is done for you. You need to add the % 's into the value that you are escaping.

$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database", $user, $pass);
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE column LIKE ?;";
$stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute(array("%{$_GET['searchterm']}%"));
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();
print_r($results);