query syntax question

i've got a form where the user can check whether a name is already in the db. At the moment, my query is:

SELECT * FROM dvdcat_director WHERE director_surname LIKE '%$searchtext%' OR director_firstname LIKE '%$searchtext%'

which works perfectly if the user enters either a surname or a first name. But if the user enters the full name, no records are found. I thought that a union would be required so I tried a query like

(SELECT * FROM dvdcat_director WHERE director_surname LIKE '%$searchtext%') UNION ( SELECT * FROM dvdcat_director WHERE director_firstname LIKE '%$searchtext%')

but this got a parse error in php.

can anyone suggest a way around this?

~magda~

Here's one idea

SELECT * FROM dvdcat_director WHERE CONCAT(director_firstname, ' ',director_surname) LIKE '%$searchtext%'

it worked! many thanks