I'm combining fields using CONCAT in a MySQL query like this:

SELECT db_people.`member_number`,

      concat(
          db_people.`prefix`, ' ',
          db_people.`first_name`, ' ',
          db_people.`middle_name`, ' ',
          db_people.`last_name`, ' ',
          db_people.`suffix`
        ) as `name`,
       db_people.`prefix`, 
       db_people.`first_name`,
       db_people.`middle_name`,
       db_people.`last_name`,
       db_people.`suffix`,
       concat('/person/?people_id=', db_people.`id`) as edit_link
FROM db_people

Whenever I do a search (in the search box, not for a specific field) I get an error that says:

DataTables warning: table id=table_1 - Invalid JSON response. For more information about this error, please see http://datatables.net/tn/1

When looking at the AJAX response, I see it says:

<div id="error"><p class="wpdberror"><strong>WordPress database error:</strong> [Unknown column 'db_people.name' in 'where clause']<br /><code>SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS db_people.`member_number`, concat(db_people.`prefix`,' ',db_people.`first_name`,' ',db_people.`middle_name`,' ',db_people.`last_name`,' ',db_people.`suffix`) AS `name`, db_people.`prefix`, db_people.`first_name`, db_people.`middle_name`, db_people.`last_name`, db_people.`suffix`, concat('/person/?people_id=',db_people.`id`) AS edit_link FROM db_people WHERE (`db_people`.`member_number` LIKE '%g%' OR `db_people`.`name` LIKE '%g%' OR `db_people`.`prefix` LIKE '%g%' OR `db_people`.`first_name` LIKE '%g%' OR `db_people`.`middle_name` LIKE '%g%' OR `db_people`.`last_name` LIKE '%g%' OR `db_people`.`suffix` LIKE '%g%' OR `db_people`.`edit_link` LIKE '%g%') ORDER BY `member_number` ASC LIMIT 50</code></p></div>{"draw":2,"recordsTotal":"4104","recordsFiltered":"8","data":[]}

It looks like you're trying to search for my CONCAT field which is giving an error.

What I'm trying to achieve is to combine fields (i.e. a person's name or a link using an ID).  Is there a way to do that without CONCAT?  If not, can you fix it so the search doesn't try to search the CONCAT?

Thanks,
Carl

Great tips.  I'll try that.

Thanks,
Carl

I just had exactly this problem and creating a View solved it!