I wanted to figure out how to let my users search our published projects on PoP Project. Googling for 'search mysql php' gave me several scripts that would search a sql table column from form input. BUT THEY WERE ALL DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND, as well as generally procedurally written.  I found little explanation and unwilling to use a script that I did not understand or like, I kept searching.

What I used to implement the search

I finally found a wonderful article on iamcal.com that shows you step by step how to set up a search through php and mysql.  The article is PHP: Searching with PHP and MySQL, and is written by Cal Henderson of iamcal.com.  He offers a piece of code followed by just enough explanation of what that code is set up to do.  The code seems robust and well thought out (although still procedural for me), and the explanations helped a lot.

That article (as well as another one Cal wrote titled PHP: Search Term Highlighting) helped me set up a very comfortable and accurate search on PoP Project. (PoP Project is a tool we offer for very approachable project management.  You can find out more at http://mypopproject.com).