So, i would like to retrieve database information where a user will search certain columns using text fields, like this:
column1 find userinput, column2 find userinput, column3 find userinput,
The problem im having is the sql statement:
String sql = "select * from table where column = '" + textfield1.getText() + "'";
If textfield1 is empty, it will only retrieve entries that contain nothing.
What im trying to retrieve will have 6 text field, meaning 6 columns in the database. Using java i would need alot of if statements.
Is there any other way to shorten this?
EDIT — MORE INFO —
The if statements will start from:
if (!(t1.getText().equals("")) && !(t2.getText().equals("")) && !(t3.getText().equals(""))
&& !(t4.getText().equals("")) && !(t5.getText().equals("")) && (t6.getText().equals("")))
all the way down to
if (t1.getText().equals("") && t2.getText().equals("") && t3.getText().equals("")
&& t4.getText().equals("") && t5.getText().equals("") && t6.getText().equals("")
covering all possible combinations of the 6 input fields, the point of all these statements is to ignore empty text fields but provide the corresponding sql statement.
I don’t know how to calculate the possible combinations other than writing them all down(i started, there was too many).
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Answer
I didn’t really understand why those ifs, you should elaborate more your question but i will try to help as i can.
Well, if you want to retrieve everything from the database you could use LIKE:
String sql = "select * from table where column like '%" + textfield1.getText() + "%'";
This way you’ll get everything with the containing text, it means, if the field is empty it will bring all results, i guess this is the best way to do, to avoid unnecessa if clauses.
Another thing, to check for empty fields you should use:
t1.getText().trim().isEmpty()
BUT if you let they write white spaces the LIKE won’t help you then you need to .trim() all your texts then your white spaces will be ignored.