multi-table search

[frannie96]

I have several tables. They look similar to the one below:

table1

| archive_id | lastname | firstname | state | etc... |

| 100 | Jones | George | WV | etc... |
| 101 | Doe | John | IN | etc... |


table2

| archive_id | lastname | firstname | state | etc... |

| 100 | Frito | Lay | NY | etc... |
| 101 | Doe | Jane | NE | etc... |


I want to run a search through all the tables

<?
$var = @$_GET['query'] ;
$trimmed = trim($var);

$limit=10;

if ($trimmed == "")

{
echo "<div align=center>

Please enter a search word.

</div>";

exit;

}

if ($trimmed == "Type Surname Here")

{
echo "<div align=center>

Please enter a search word.

</div>";

exit;

}

if (!isset($var))

{
echo "

We do not seem to have a search parameter!

";

exit;
}

//Here is where my problem begins.
//This works if I only had one table:
//$sql = "SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE lastname
// LIKE '%$trimmed%'";

// but this doesn't:

$sql = "SELECT * FROM table1, table2 WHERE lastname
LIKE '%$trimmed%'";

$numresults=mysql_query($sql);
$numrows=mysql_num_rows($numresults);

if ($numrows == 0)

{

echo "Results";
echo "<p align=center>Sorry, your search: "" . $trimmed . "" returned zero results.</p>";

exit;

}

if (empty($s)) {
$s=0;
}

$sql .= " limit $s,$limit";

$sql_result = mysql_query($sql,$connection)
or die("Couldn't execute the query.");

?>

I have looked through many forums but they don't seem to work with what I am trying to accomplish. Please understand that I am new to this and need lots of guidance.

[Xnuiem]

With no relationship between the tables there is not a way to obtain the results from both tables using only a single query. If you do not have your tables properly normalized, it would be better to use two queries.