Running PHP search script with empty parameters returns entire MySQL table

Question

When I run the following MySQL query via PHP and all of the elements of $_GET() are empty strings, all the records in the volunteers table are returned (for obvious reasons).

$first = $_GET['FirstName'];
$last = $_GET['LastName'];
$middle = $_GET['MI'];

$query = "SELECT * FROM volunteers WHERE 0=0";

if ($first){
    $query .= " AND first like '$first%'";
}

if ($middle){
    $query .= " AND mi like '$middle%'";
}

if ($last){
    $query .= " AND last like '$last%'";
}

$result = mysql_query($query);

What is the most elegant way of allowing empty parameters to be sent to this script with the result being that an empty $result is returned?

Answer 1

my solution:

$input = Array(
    'FirstName' => 'first',
    'LastName'  => 'last',
    'MI'        => 'mi'
);

$where = Array();
foreach($input as $key => $column) {
    $value = trim(mysql_escape_string($_GET[$key]));
    if($value) $where[] = "`$column` like '$value%'";
}
if(count($where)) {
    $query = "SELECT * FROM volunteers WHERE ".join(" AND ", $where);
    $result = mysql_query($query);
}

Answer 2

There's no point in running a (potentially) expensive query if there's nothing for that query to do. So instead of trying to come up with an alternate query to prevent no-terms being searched, just don't run the search at all if there's no terms:

$where = '';
... add clauses ...
if ($where !== '') {
   $sql = "SELECT ... WHERE $where";
   ... do query ...
} else {
   die("You didn't enter any search terms");
}

Answer 3

With your current code, if everything is empty, you will get the WHERE 0=0 SQL which is TRUE for all rows in the table.

All you have to do is remove the if statements...