sql/mysql search one field for two keywords

Question

this is what I have:

SELECT `id`, `names` FROM `screenplays` WHERE `names` LIKE '%joe%mike%'

the field names contains:

row1: joe
row2: mike
row3: joe,mike

how do I return all 3 rows as a result ?

Answer 1

Use

SELECT `id`, `names` 
FROM `screenplays` 
WHERE `names` LIKE '%joe%' 
    OR `names` LIKE '%mike%'

If the names are separated by a comma, and you don't want names like joey when you specify joe, you can expand on the query like:

SELECT `id`, `names` 
FROM `screenplays` 
WHERE `names` LIKE 'joe'
    OR `names` LIKE '%,joe'
    OR `names` LIKE 'joe,%'
    OR `names` LIKE '%,joe,%'

And similarly for each keyword

Answer 2

All good answers, but I prefer to use MySQL's excellent support for regular expressions:

SELECT `id`, `names` FROM `screenplays` WHERE `names` REGEX 'joe|mike'

To take in to account comma separated names, and also white space use a more advanced regular expression:

SELECT `id`, `names` FROM `screenplays` WHERE `names` REGEX '(^|,) *(joe|mike) *($|,)'

Which breaks down to:

 (^|,) # begin at start of line, or after a comma * # ignore any spaces (joe|mike) # names to match * # ignore any spaces ($|,) # ends at end of line or a comma 

See MySQL manual page for REGEX

Answer 3

SELECT `id`, `names` FROM `screenplays` 
WHERE concat(',', `names`, ',') LIKE '%,mike,%' or concat(',', `names`, ',') LIKE '%,joe,%'

Adding comma to names prevent returning carlton when you are searching carl .