16 possible searches in one query, is it possible ?

[jasonc]

i wish to search for members of my site that fit a criteria.

 

say age, gender, something, somethingelse.

 

I wish to know how I can search for all possible combinations of these searches.

 

say the search for all 4 returns no results then it searches then the next search query need to find all other conbinations that closely match.

 

say age, gender, something;  if none then

age, gender, somethingelse; if none then

age, something, somethigelse.

 

(not so much in this order but any order)

 

or can this be done with one query?

[fenway]

Why not search everything and simply adjust the weights?

[s0c0]

Umm...

SELECT 
  * 
FROM 
  my_table 
WHERE 
  (age = '18' AND gender = 'M')
  OR
  (age = '18' AND eyes = 'Blue')

 

Does something like this not work?

 

[s0c0]

Interestingly enough High Performance MySQL has a chapter on query/index optimization that has an example VERY similar to your post.  Just found that kinda interesting.