Node MySQL escape LIKE statement

Question

How do escape a MySQL LIKE statement in node-mysql?

Something along the lines of

"SELECT * FROM card WHERE name LIKE '%" + connection.escape(req.body.search) + "%'"

Results in

'SELECT * FROM card WHERE name LIKE \'%\'hello\'%\''

Which is a syntax error. If I use the alternative syntax of

connection.query("SELECT * FROM card WHERE name LIKE '%?%'", req.body.search, function () {});

Results in a similar syntax error. I've also tried

connection.query("SELECT * FROM card WHERE name LIKE ?", '%' + req.body.search + '%', function () {});

Which just ends up escaping the '%' sign.

Solution 1

Not sure why it's escaping the % in your last example, because that works fine for me:

// lifted from my code:
var value = 'ee20e966289cd7';
connection.query('SELECT * from django_session where session_key like ?', '%' + value + '%', ...)

// Result:
[ { session_key: '713ee20e966289cd71b936084a1e613e', ... } ]

When I turn on debugging in the driver (pass debug:true as argument to mysql.createConnection), it doesn't escape the percent sign:

{ command: 3,
  sql: 'SELECT * from django_session where session_key like \'%ee20e966289cd7%\'' }

(it does escape the single quote, but that's for display purposes only)

(using [email protected])

Solution 2

i've had success with something like

"SELECT * FROM card WHERE name LIKE " + connection.escape('%'+req.body.search+'%')

Solution 3

How about

mysql.format("SELECT * FROM card WHERE name LIKE CONCAT('%', ?,  '%')", req.body.search)

?

Comments

[Parth]

This works. connection.escape works in a weird manner. I was trying to put the % sign around the connection.escape and then get something like %'value'%. That would totally ruin the query. But got this correct now. Thanks to you. Cheers!

[Nico Haase]

What do you mean by that? Can you add some explanation to your code such that others can learn from it?

[Rodrigo Pazzini Jacques]

lets say you have a method called searchUser that gets a name as param and returns the user data or false if the user does not exist searchUser(user){ name = %${name}%` db.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE name LIKE ?;", [name], (erro, callback)) }`

[Rodrigo Pazzini Jacques]

The point is to use javascript template strings to have the % operator inside the string that the LIKE uses to search.

[Nico Haase]

Please add all explanation to your answer by editing it

[zealouscoder]

What if I want to do something like this? query = 'SELECT * from Events e where e.Zipcode='+mysql.escape(req.body.near)+" and e.EventName LIKE %"+mysql.escape(req.body.find)+'%'; and then have this passed to query the db? I am getting the same error

[Aminadav Glickshtein]

Do not use it. SQL INJECTION.

[Michael]

I get an error like this: `Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'sometext'%')' at line 1. I don't understand why it's putting in the extra single quotes!