Do your query planner a favour and forget about like. You're better off using instr, and you can feed it a placeholder. I would rewrite your statement as

    my $sth = $dbh->prepare(
        "SELECT * FROM  my_table
         WHERE
           instr(description, :1) > 0
        OR instr(shortdescription, :1) > 0
        OR instr(name, :1) > 0"
      ) || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;
      $sth->execute($word) || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;

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Use numbered placeholders instead, that way you don't have to build up a riculously long list of redundant args for execute(). SQL Server, Oracle and Pg all permit numbered placeholders. If your database doesn't, well then you have no choice but to use ?. Your database might also not implement instr(), but I expect there would be a function with a different name that serves the same purpose.

• another intruder with the mooring in the heart of the Perl

In reply to Re: DBI - I can't use bind variables with "like"? by grinder
in thread DBI - I can't use bind variables with "like"? by Cody Pendant

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