Strict Search not working

You’re correct, the “strict search” setting will only return matches to the conplete contents of the field. The partial matches you’re seeing indicate it’s not working like that.

I’m not seeing this problem in my tests here, so what I suggest you do is turn plugin debugging on (this is under the advanced tab in the plugin settings) and then try a search that is giving unexpected results. In the debugging log will be the database query that was used.

That will tell you why you’re getting the results. Post the query from the log (no need to post thw whole log!) here if you have questions about how it’s working.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by xnau webdesign.

Thank you for your quick response! Ok here is the query in question:

PDb_List::_setup_iteration list query: SELECT p.id, p.display_name, p.company, p.first_name, p.last_name, p.title, p.attn, p.address, p.city, p.state, p.zip, p.country, p.phone, p.ext, p.mobile, p.fax, p.email, p.www, p.referred, p.notes, p.last_updated FROM wp_participants_database p WHERE p.display_name LIKE “%Mail.com%” ORDER BY p.display_name ASC

It looks like I need to change the “LIKE” to “=” to make it work correctly, but I’m not sure where to do that.

That’s what the “Strict User Searching” setting does…are you sure you have that setting checked? Do you have any custom code or plugin that modifies the search query?

Also, check to make sure the page is not cached.

I was able to fix it. I had forgotten that when creating the template, I added this field:

<input name=”operator” type=”hidden” class=”search-item” value=”LIKE” />

..which took the place of this:

$output[] = ‘<input name=”operator” type=”hidden” class=”search-item” value=”‘ . ( Participants_Db::plugin_setting_is_true( ‘strict_search’ ) ? ‘=’ : ‘LIKE’ ) . ‘” />’;

So I just changed the “LIKE” to “=”, and it works now. My bad. Your plugin works beautifully, thanks again!