search advice

[harkly]

I am doing a search that is similar to imdb.com's. I may be over thinking this but I want to be able to search for a name and not get an error if the user puts in to many spaces. I've used trim() to get rid of any spaces before and after and now I need something for any in the middle. I have looked at using EXPLODE but not sure how to get them back together. Then I was thinking if I used IMPLODE and thought that if I created another column in the table with no spaces that would work. I did try a FULL TEXT SEARCH but that didn't resolve my problem.  Can anyone send me in a good direction?

 

Also, I want to be able to pull up data when they misspell the name. I looked at the SOUNDEX but was a bit confused and I want to double check with you guys to see if that may be the direction to go in.

[bobbinsbro]

for the white space elimination you could use:

$string = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', $string); //just for the space char

or:

$string = preg_replace('/[\s\t\n\r]+/', ' ', $string); //for all whitespace chars

[harkly]

Worked like a Charm!!  Thanks!!

 

Any ideas as to what path I should look at for misspellings?