foreach my $word (@words) {
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare(
        "SELECT * FROM  my_table
         WHERE 
           description LIKE '%?%' 
        OR shortdescription LIKE '%?%' 
        OR name LIKE '%?%'"
      ) || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;

    $sth->execute($word,$word,$word) || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;
 # do some stuff
}

[download]


You are getting the error:

"Called with 3 bind variables when 0 are needed"

Because the DBI Doesn't think you have any bind variables to be filled because your ? ( Question Marks / Bind Variable Placeholders ) are within single quotes.

I believe that when using bind variables with the DBI you need to leave the ? ( question mark ) unquoted, or by itself.

Since you're doing a LIKE you can prepend, and append the percent signs to your variable $word.

Like this: 
# Add percent sign for LIKE value in DB Search
$word .= "\%$word\%";

[download]


Then modify your SQL Statement to look like this: 
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare(
        "SELECT * FROM  my_table
         WHERE 
           description LIKE ? 
        OR shortdescription LIKE ?
        OR name LIKE ?"
      ) || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;

[download]


Definitely hope that helps! Good luck!

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

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.