MySQL Query with multiple AND statements seems to be ignoring one

I'm trying to run a query on a 开发者_StackOverflow社区MySQL database, but I found that it seems to be ignoring the 'status' item.

SELECT * FROM  `posts`  
WHERE
      `tags` LIKE '%gda%' 
   OR `tags` LIKE '%contests%' 
   OR `tags` LIKE '%merch%' 
  AND `newsID` != '2134' 
  AND `status` > '1' 
ORDER BY  `postDate` DESC  LIMIT 5

In that example, it's still pulling items even if 'status' is set to 0. What am I doing wrong?

---

The problem is with the priority of OR/AND conditions. AND has a higher priority than OR, that's why it firstly evaluates all conditions connected by AND (tags-merch, newsID-2134 and status-1) and then evaluates the both tags-gda and tags-contests).

Try to add the brackets:

SELECT *  
  FROM  `posts`  
 WHERE (`tags` LIKE  '%gda%' 
    OR  `tags` LIKE  '%contests%' 
    OR  `tags` LIKE  '%merch%')
   AND  `newsID` !=  '2134' 
   AND `status` > '1' 
ORDER BY  `postDate` DESC
LIMIT 5

---

have you tried something like:

SELECT * FROM  `posts`  
WHERE
     ( `tags` LIKE '%gda%' 
   OR `tags` LIKE '%contests%' 
   OR `tags` LIKE '%merch%')
  AND `newsID` != '2134' 
  AND `status` > '1' 
ORDER BY  `postDate` DESC  LIMIT 5

---

Maybe you should use some brackets I don't know what combinations you want but try this:

  SELECT * FROM  `posts`  
    WHERE
         ( `tags` LIKE '%gda%' 
       OR `tags` LIKE '%contests%' 
       OR `tags` LIKE '%merch%' 
      )
      AND `newsID` != '2134' 
      AND `status` > '1' 
    ORDER BY  `postDate` DESC  LIMIT 5

---

Usually mixing ORs and ANDs is not a smart practice, since you'll get different results based on the execution order and the operator precedence, e.g, true or true and false, can be evaluated as (true or true) and false - yielding false or as true or (true and false) - yielding true.

Use parentheses to separate the ORs and the ANDs, and the execution order will be explicit, like this:

SELECT * FROM  `posts`
WHERE (`tags` LIKE '%gda%' OR `tags` LIKE '%contests%' OR `tags` LIKE '%merch%')
  AND `newsID` != '2134'
  AND `status` > '1'
ORDER BY  `postDate` DESC  LIMIT 5 

---

Try to use brackets to emphasize your logical sentences. Such as:

SELECT *  
  FROM  `posts`  
 WHERE  (`tags` LIKE  '%gda%' OR  `tags` LIKE  '%contests%' OR  `tags` LIKE  '%merch%') 
   AND  `newsID` !=  '2134' 
   AND `status` > '1' 
ORDER BY  `postDate` DESC  LIMIT 5

Otherwise, your logic gets lost. Also using brackets makes easier to read your SQL sentences.