need help with converting my php to vbulletin

[Mickie D]

this code below works fine out of the vbulletin system and converting it to work with vbulletin is proving very dificult for me can someone assist please

as you can see i did convert some of the code (i.e the get stuff)

PHP Code:


// ##### CLEAN GET COMMANDS AND PROCESS SEARCHSTR VARIABLE #####

$vbulletin->input->clean_gpc('r', 'item', TYPE_NOHTML); 
$searchstr = $vbulletin->GPC['searchstr'];


// ##### CHECK SEARCHSTR IS NOT MORE THAN 8 DIGITS #####

if(strlen($searchstr) < 8)
{
$footoutput = 'sorry you have entered more than 8 charactors for your players first name you wont find him like that';
}


$sql = $db->query_read("SELECT SUBSTRING(footie_data,9,16) AS footie_data FROM football WHERE footie_data LIKE '$searchstr%'");


$results = @mysql_query($sql); 
$numResults = @mysql_num_rows($results); 

if($numResults >0) 
{ 
while ($row = mysql_fetch_object($results)) 
{ 

$footoutput=$row->footie_data; 
}
} 


i think it may have something to do with this bit:

PHP Code:

$results = @mysql_query($sql); 
$numResults = @mysql_num_rows($results); 


i am using a template but its not displaying the results when i use the get command from the same template (maybe its not parsing it right ?) but all i get is the message from first instance of $footoutput and it wont search the database ??

im not sure if i can use the code above in vbulletin code ?

thanks for any help given

Regards
Mickie

anyone help ?