sql - How to implement a Keyword Search in MySQL?

Question

I am new to SQL programming.

I have a table job where the fields are id, position, category, location, salary range, description, refno.

I want to implement a keyword search from the front end. The keyword can reside in any of the fields of the above table.

This is the query I have tried but it consist of so many duplicate rows:

SELECT
    a.*,
    b.catname
FROM
    job a,
    category b
WHERE
    a.catid = b.catid AND
    a.jobsalrange = '15001-20000' AND
    a.jobloc = 'Berkshire' AND
    a.jobpos LIKE '%sales%' OR
    a.jobloc LIKE '%sales%' OR
    a.jobsal LIKE '%sales%' OR
    a.jobref LIKE '%sales%' OR
    a.jobemail LIKE '%sales%' OR
    a.jobsalrange LIKE '%sales%' OR
    b.catname LIKE '%sales%'

Answer 1

For a single keyword on VARCHAR fields you can use LIKE:

SELECT id, category, location
FROM table
WHERE
(
    category LIKE '%keyword%'
    OR location LIKE '%keyword%'
)

For a description you're usually better adding a full text index and doing a Full-Text Search (MyISAM only):

SELECT id, description
FROM table
WHERE MATCH (description) AGAINST('keyword1 keyword2')