I’m making a query to pull posts from my post query based on a user entry in a form. I want to keep the form simple so I’m hoping to only have to use one field. That field would say search part number or product title. It’s an going to be an Ajax response. Here’s the code I have right now:

function led_search_function(){

    $args = array(
              'post_type'   => 'al_product',
              'post_status' => 'publish',
        'posts_per_page' => 20,
    );
 
    // for taxonomies / categories
    if( isset( $_POST['categoryfilter'] ) && $_POST['categoryfilter'] )
        $args['tax_query'] = array(
            array(
                'taxonomy' => 'product_category',
                'field' => 'id',
                'terms' => $_POST['categoryfilter']
            )
        );
 
    // create $args['meta_query'] array if one of the following fields is filled
    if( isset( $_POST['part_number'] ) && $_POST['part_number'] )
        $args['meta_query'] = array( 'relation'=>'OR' ); // OR means that both below conditions of meta_query should be true

    
    if( isset( $_POST['part_number'] ) && $_POST['part_number'] ) {
        //checks for the part number
        $args['meta_query'][] = array(
            'key' => 'part_number',
            'value' => $_POST['part_number'],
            'compare'   => 'LIKE',
        );
        //checks if variations have part numbers to add to the array
        $args['meta_query'][] = array(
            'key' => 'product_variations_$_part_number',
            'value' => $_POST['part_number'],
            'compare'   => 'LIKE',
        );
       }
 
    $query = new WP_Query( $args );
 
    if( $query->have_posts() ) :
              echo '<h2>Your Search Results</h2><div class="productCategories grid">';
        while( $query->have_posts() ): $query->the_post(); ?>
                                    <div class="product_cat">
                            <a href="<?php the_permalink();?>">
                                <?php the_post_thumbnail('small');?>
                                <h2><?php the_title();?></h2>
                    <?php 
                                    $subtitle = get_field('subtitle');
                                    if ( $subtitle ) { 
                                        echo '<h3 class="entry-subtitle">'.$subtitle.'</h3>';
                                    }
                    ?>
                            </a>
                        </div>
    
                        <?php
        endwhile;
        echo '</div>';
        wp_reset_postdata();
    else :
        echo 'No lights found';
    endif;
 
    die();
}

It’s a bit misleading right now because the field on the form is still called “part_number” even though it will search for everything.

I’m hoping to be able to add a 3rd part to the query that will search for the post title as well (or parts of it…so if the someone typed “sun” it would return products called “sunbeast” or “sun set light”.

The 2nd catch is that if that the search term is NOT in the title but is still a part number I need it to return a the results still.

I see that i can use the “s” variable but that searches content too and is strict on title case. Is there a better method?