mysql - select values from tables LIKE values from another table

Question

I have MySQL database with two tables: users and items. They look like this:

users:

id | user_name | desc
--------------------------
1  | john      | tall
2  | dave      | fat
3  | maria     | pretty

items:

id | item_name | color
--------------------------
1  | trousers  | red
2  | shoes     | blue
3  | shoes     | red

I want to select from database list of items that have specific id and name of it is LIKE a keyword. It's for use of simple search engine. I am making such query:

SELECT id, user_name, ( SELECT item_name FROM items WHERE id = u.id ) as desc FROM users u WHERE desc LIKE "%shoes%" AND color LIKE "%blue%"

As a result, I would expect one line containing id = 2, username = dave and itemname = shoes because it's the only one row fulfilling my query. Unfortunately, I get a message that there is no a 'desc' column. I know that there is not such a column in 'users' but how tell MySQL to grab it from subquery named desc?

Additional question: is that possible to work with WHERE ... LIKE command and array style like IN (val1, val2, val3)? I mean instead of loooong queries:

SELECT name 
FROM users 
WHERE name 
LIKE "%john%" OR name 
LIKE "%steven%" OR name LIKE "bob%"

make shorter:

SELECT name FROM users WHERE name LIKE IN ( "%john%", "%steven%", "%bob%")

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Try this :

SELECT 
    u.id, u.user_name, i.item_name, i.color
FROM
    users AS u,
    items AS i
WHERE
    i.id = u.id
AND
    i.item_name LIKE "%shoes%" 
AND 
    i.color LIKE "%blue%"

For the second part, if you look at this page on MySQL dev site you will see that you can use REGEXP to match your result instead of LIKE so you I think you can use something like

REGEXP 'john|steven|bob'

Answer 2

You need to have an inner join with items. Also I don't think you can use desc. Have used descr in my answer instead

Haven't tested this, but please try the following

SELECT u.id, u.user_name, i.item_name as descr 
FROM users u INNER JOIN items i
ON i.id = u.id
WHERE i.item_name LIKE '%shoes%' 
AND i.color LIKE '%blue%'

Answer 3

After hours of hopless searching correct syntax i found what i was looking for. Best way, instead of using regexp and complicating a query i suggest using concat all column names into on string and then search it via as many LIKEs as we have keywords. Maybe that doesnt look elegant but is good enough for me. Example:

SELECT user_name, item_name FROM table WHERE CONCAT(user_name, item_name) LIKE '%keyword1%' 

Look out for NULL records - if you concat only one field with null, the result becomes null too so use IFNULL(null_record, '').

Hope it helps anyone.

Answer 4

SELECT *
FROM users u
WHERE
   u.id IN (SELECT id
               FROM items
               WHERE
                  items.id=u.id
               AND
                  color LIKE '%$search%'
               AND
                  item_name LIKE '%$search%'
            )