Search database with WPDB using a php variable

Question

I'm trying to do a basic search feature for my website database. I want to search the text content inside a custom database table using Wordpress and WPDB.

For some reason the search is not returning anything from the database but I'm also not getting any error messages. Here is my code:

thePage.php:

<form class="searchCV_form" role="form" action="">
     <div>
         <input type="text" id="search_text" name="search_text" class="cv__text">
         <span class="input-group-btn">
             <button type="submit" class="btn btn-default btn-primary cv__button search--form-btn">SUBMIT</button>
         </span>
     </div>
 </form>
 <div id="search_results"></div>

 <script>
// wrap everything in a closure
(function($){

  // get our references
  var $form = $('form.searchCV_form'),
      $search_field = $('#search_text'),
      $results = $('#search_results');

  // AJAX search call
  function do_search() {

    // grab the query value from the search field
    var search_text = $search_field.val();

    // do a POST ajax call
    $.ajax({
      type: "POST",
      url: '<?php echo admin_url('admin-ajax.php'); ?>',
      data: ({
        action: "search_cv",
        search_text: search_text
      }),
      success: function (response){
        console.log(response);
        $results.html(response);
      }
    });
  }

  // on submit, do the search but return false to stop page refresh
  $form.submit(function(e) {
    do_search();
    return false;
  });

})(jQuery);
</script>

Functions.php:

function search_cv()
{
    // get the search query
    $search_text = ($_POST["search_text"]);

    // clean it up
    $search_text = sanitize_text_field( $search_text);

    // ... do stuff with it
    global $wpdb;

    $result = $wpdb->get_results( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT b, c, v, t FROM myTableName WHERE t like %s", $search_text), ARRAY_A ); 

    //output the HTML which will be consumed by $.html()

    ?><div>You searched for <?php echo $search_text; ?> and we found... <?php 

    foreach ($result as $row) {
    echo $row->t; 
    }

    ?></div><?php

    // stop doing stuff
    die();
}

add_action( 'wp_ajax_search_cv', 'search_cv' ); 
add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_search_cv', 'search_cv' );

I suspect that the mistake is in my use of $wpdp->prepare or the SQL query, but I have no idea what could be wrong there.

Answer 1

This code in the functions.php file made it work (based on the two helpful comments):

function search_cv()
{
    // get the search query
    $search_text = ($_POST["search_text"]);

    // clean it up
    $search_text = sanitize_text_field( $search_text);

    // ... do stuff with it
    global $wpdb;

    $result = $wpdb->get_results( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT b, c, v, t FROM myTableName WHERE t like %s", "%$search_text%"), ARRAY_A ); 

    //output the HTML which will be consumed by $.html()

    ?><div>You searched for <?php echo $search_text; ?> and we found... <?php 

    foreach ($result as $row) {
    echo $row[t]; 
    }

    ?></div><?php

    // stop doing stuff
    die();
}

add_action( 'wp_ajax_search_cv', 'search_cv' ); 
add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_search_cv', 'search_cv' );