Sql query for multiple names in a single search engine - sql-server

Question

Can anyone help me to find out the SQL query for following scenario.
I have a search box, which I want to search multiple names separated by spaces.
for example : "David Jones" which gives me the result of David's details and Jones details.
select
emp.cid as empcid,
emp.name,
emp.employeeno,
info.employeeUniqueId,
info.agentId,
info.empBankCode,
info.accountNumber,
info.ibanAccNo
from tblemployee emp,
fk_tblUserEmployeeList f,
empinfo info
where
info.employee = emp.cid
and emp.cid = f.employeeid
and f.userId = 1
and
(
name like '%david%'
or emp.employeeno like '%david%'
or info.employeeUniqueId like '%david%'
or info.agentId like '%david%'
or info.empBankCode like '%david%'
or info.accountNumber like '%david%'
)
I want include Jones inside search box also, then how will the like condition changes>

Answer 1

This seems like a case for full-text search. After setting up full-text indices on your tblemployee, fk_tblUserEmployeeList, and empinfo tables, your query would look something like this:
SELECT
emp.cid AS empcid,
emp.name,
emp.employeeno,
info.employeeUniqueID,
info.agentID,
info.empBankCode,
info.accountNumber,
info.ibanAccNo
FROM dbo.tblemployee emp
INNER JOIN dbo.fk_tblUserEmployeeList f ON
f.employeeid = emp.cid
INNER JOIN dbo.empinfo info ON
info.employee = emp.cid
WHERE
f.userID = 1
AND
( FREETEXT(Emp.*, 'david jones')
OR FREETEXT(info.*, 'david jones')
)
gives you this data:
+--------+-------+------------+------------------+---------+-------------+---------------+-----------+
| empcid | name | employeeno | employeeUniqueID | agentID | empBankCode | accountNumber | ibanAccNo |
+--------+-------+------------+------------------+---------+-------------+---------------+-----------+
| 1 | David | NULL | david | david | david | david | david |
| 2 | Jones | NULL | jones | jones | jones | jones | jones |
+--------+-------+------------+------------------+---------+-------------+---------------+-----------+
Note that I changed your query to use the modern industry-standard join style.
Keep in mind that, to create a full-text index on a table, the table must have a single-column unique index. If one of your tables has a multi-column primary key, you'll have to add a column (see this question for more information).
A couple of notes about your naming conventions:
There's no need to preface table names with tbl (especially since you're not doing so consistently). There are loads of people telling you not to do this: See this answer as an example.
fk_tblUserEmployeeList is a bad table name: The prefixes fk and tbl don't add any information. What kind of information is stored in this table? I would suggest a more descriptive name (with no prefixes).
Now, if you don't want to go the route of using a full-text index, you can parse the input client-side before sending to SQL Server. You can split the search input on a space, and then construct the SQL accordingly.

Answer 2

declare #SearchString varchar(200)='David Jones', #Word varchar(100)
declare #Words table (Word varchar(100))
-- Parse the SearchString to extract all words
while len(#SearchString) > 0 begin
if charindex(' ', #SearchString)>0 begin
select #Word = rtrim(ltrim(substring(#SearchString,0,charindex(' ', #SearchString)))),
#SearchString = rtrim(ltrim(replace(#SearchString, #Word, '')))
end
else begin
select #Word = #SearchString,
#SearchString = ''
end
if #Word != ''
insert into #Words select #Word
end
-- Return Results
select t.*
from MyTable t
join #Words w on
' ' + t.MyColumn + ' ' like '%[^a-z]' + w.Word + '[^a-z]%'