New to PHP would like help with search box

[atchy]

Hi,
I am currently moving my site over from ASP to PHP and I am trying to create a FULL TEXT search facility. I have created a results page which works perfectly if I type in the name/s directly but unable to get a text field on my search page to work. I am using Dreamweaver, MySql + PHP and testing locally using Apache. A lot of the PHP code is quiet baffling to me and have been using the MySQL Full-Text Searching with PHP from your site as a guide. I feel it must be straightfoward but beyond me. The code from the Recordset is below.
I would appreciate any guidance advice so that I may maintain some sanity.

Thanks

John

SELECT artistinfotbl.artistName, artistinfotbl.lastName,artistinfotbl.headDescription, MATCH (artistinfotbl.artistName, artistinfotbl.lastName)  AGAINST ('$search' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS score
FROM artistinfotbl
WHERE MATCH (artistinfotbl.artistName, artistinfotbl.lastName)  AGAINST ('$search' IN BOOLEAN MODE)
ORDER BY score DESC

replacing '$search' with name/s gives exactly what I want.

[fenway]

So the interpolation isn't working?

[atchy]

Hi Fenway,
Not sure what you mean by Interpolation. In my ASP version I added a variable to the recordset (Request.QueryString) but trying to add a variable with #search# as shown in 'Dreamweaver help' gives a blank page. It seems that I am missing some code but as I am totally new to PHP I am not sure what this is or where it should be.
If you can advise or point me to a straightfoward tutorial or beginners guide to PHP I would be most grateful

Thanks for your reply

Regards

John

[fenway]

What I mean is that I want to see what the query resolves to after the variable has been substituted....

[atchy]

Substituting '$search' with e.g. 'Gregor anda smith vanessa'  (a mixture from 2 columns from table) displays on my results page a list of people matching the keywords; exactly what I want. To my simplistic way of thinking the search page/form is not talking to the results page.  When I try putting in a variable the blank page that results is exactly that, there is no code at all in view source.
Sorry I am probably not explaining it in the correct way.
John

[fenway]

How are you settting $search?

[atchy]

My text box name is 'search' and I thought that '$search' was/is  the variable I need.
Further research has me thinking that I need something like:
$something = (isset ($_GET['search']);
and
$something = mysql_escape_string($_GET['search']);
Thanks

John

Youre last comment got me thinking (its hard at my age) and blundering around and adding
$searchstring = mysql_escape_string($_GET['search']);
seems to have got me going.
Many thanks for your patience with a PHP beginner. All I have to do now is get the results to link to the details page.
I may be back.
regards