If the following snippet is really what you are running now, this explains why you are not getting any results I'm pretty sure this does not do what you intend it to do -- in fact, it's kind of pointless: 
my @rows;
my $z = @rows;  # There is nothing in @rows yet, so $z is 0
if ($z = 0) {   # but in any case, this will never return true!
print "We are sorry, but your search did not return any results.<P />\
+n";
print "<input type=\"button\" value=\"  Try again  \" onClick=\"histor
+y.go(-1)\">\n";
print "$tbl_ref\n";
}

[download]
Your "if" statement is not testing whether $z equals zero -- you would need to use "==" to test that. But you also need to do that "if" statement after you try to push things onto @rows, not before. (See below.)

Apart from that, I have a couple suggestions that I hope will make your life as a perl programmer more enjoyable... First, use placeholders in your queries -- they are so much better, in so many ways: 

my $column = ( $type eq 'alpha' ) ? 'name' : "CONCAT_WS(' ',keywords,c
+ategory)";

my $query = "SELECT name, address, city, phone FROM valley ".
    "WHERE $column LIKE ? ORDER BY name LIMIT ?,?";
             
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( $query );
$sth->execute( "%$search%", $start-1, $per_page+1 );

my $table_ref = $sth->fetchall_arrayref;

# here is where/how you check whether anything was returned:

if ( ref( $table_ref ) ne 'ARRAY' or @$table_ref == 0 ) {
    ...
}

[download]
(Updated to include the check for empty return from the DB.)

Next, given that your query results are sorted by name, I don't know why you seem to want your html table to be organized like this: 

   name1   name2
   name3   name4
   ...

[download]
(Actually, I'm not sure what your intention is, but whatever...) Your loop for creating the table markup is probably broken. You start with @cells (and @cells2) containing 4 elements, and then do @cells="ugly string"; which reduces it to a single-element array, containing just the one "ugly string". (And you are referencing 5 elements in each row, where your query was only requesting 4.) There's a better way to code all that. Here's how I would arrange a simpler table: 
for my $table_row ( @$table_ref ) {
    my @table_cols = map { (defined($_) && /\S/) ? $_ : '&nbsp;'} @$ta
+ble_row;

    push @rows, Tr( \@table_cols );
}
$page .= "<b>" . table( {-border => 0, width=> 550}, \@rows) . "</b>" 
+. br();

[download]
That has not been tested (I might not have it right), but if it's wrong, it should be easy to fix. And if you really want a more complicated table layout, it'll be easier to build from this simpler approach.

Finally, the "x" operator will make it easier for you to get all those "&nbsp;" thingies to come out right, and your code will be easier to read and maintain: 

    $page .= '&nbsp; ' x 35;

[download]

In reply to Re^3: Search 2 columns by graff
in thread Search 2 columns by JimJx

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