I believe elgg_get_entities_from_attributes() is coming with 1.9, that will make life easier.

Thanks, it works perfectly!!

I somewhat new to Elgg, but I'm having the same issue.  If you search on only part of a group name, we want all of the groups that match to be returned, but zero results are coming back.  I generally understand what the code above is doing, but I'm not clear about where it needs to go.  Any pointers would be appreciated greatly.  Thanks.