Change the Search indexing minimum to 3 characters

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07-17-2009, 10:14 PM
PatronSaintofChainsaws

Change the Search indexing minimum to 3 characters

Seriously. There's enough watch-related terms that are 3 characters to justify it.

Having a search for "gmt 089" return empty results is no fun.
07-17-2009, 11:58 PM
Sbrubb

I concur. It is a bigger load on the server from what I understand though.
07-18-2009, 04:11 AM
PatronSaintofChainsaws

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sbrubb

I concur. It is a bigger load on the server from what I understand though.

Definitely higher CPU/RAM utilization, depending on how the search cache is set up and such. Then again, having people rerun searches over and over again in an attempt to find a term that can stand in place of the 3-character term they want to use also adds load :)
07-18-2009, 04:18 AM
FiFi

F the search function.

Let's just keep asking the same questions page after page after page. ;)

I've never had any decent luck with the search function here. I scroll back a few pages in the section I think the answer will be in, and if I don't see it, I post.
07-18-2009, 04:29 AM
Drhulee

Seem to remember that I started a thread and poll about this somewhere...
07-18-2009, 04:31 AM
Sparty

If this was a normal forum, I would suggest Google searching the forums...
07-18-2009, 04:33 AM
Drhulee

Been there, done that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparty

If this was a normal forum, I would suggest Google searching the forums...

As far as google is concerned, it is a normal forum. I've tried the "google" route, but is always quite out-of-date.
07-18-2009, 04:50 AM
PatronSaintofChainsaws

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drhulee

Seem to remember that I started a thread and poll about this somewhere...

I'll search for it :lol:
07-18-2009, 04:51 AM
Drhulee

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatronSaintofChainsaws

I'll search for it :lol:

I take it that LOL is due to the fact that it only a few threads down from this one :D, because if you do search for "search" it will pop right up.
07-18-2009, 04:54 AM
Sparty

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drhulee

As far as google is concerned, it is a normal forum. I've tried the "google" route, but is always quite out-of-date.

Interesting. I thought they had this site blocked from crawlers.
07-18-2009, 04:56 AM
Drhulee

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparty

Interesting. I thought they had this site blocked from crawlers.

Nope. I think they actually enabled some options to help with google indexing it.
07-18-2009, 02:20 PM
Franke

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatronSaintofChainsaws

Seriously. There's enough watch-related terms that are 3 characters to justify it.

This is only possible if the crew can modify the php settings, as the limit of 4 is set in php. Trying to set it to 3 whitout having access to php is a dead end..
07-18-2009, 05:52 PM
sixbennetts

Isn't there a wildcard character, like * or something that you can add to a short phrase?
07-19-2009, 02:10 AM
PatronSaintofChainsaws

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franke

This is only possible if the crew can modify the php settings, as the limit of 4 is set in php. Trying to set it to 3 whitout having access to php is a dead end..

If it's anything like phpBB, there should be a setting in the Admin control panel that's allows changing the search indexing minimum. It's quite literally a one-click change in phpBB. It has a lot more to do with the database (MySQL, etc.), than it does PHP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sixbennetts

Isn't there a wildcard character, like * or something that you can add to a short phrase?

You can't wildcard something that the search mechanism hasn't indexed at all. As far as search is concerned, words less than the minimum number of characters don't exist.
07-19-2009, 05:43 PM
Franke

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatronSaintofChainsaws

It's quite literally a one-click change in phpBB. It has a lot more to do with the database (MySQL, etc.), than it does PHP.

Doesn´t matter what you set it to in phpBB. It can not override the php/mysql settings. If you set it to 2 and php/mysql settings are 4, it will still be 4 after you set it to 2. Thats my point.

Changing to full text search maks this functin a little stronger.
07-19-2009, 06:21 PM
Pugwash

I say change it. CPU is cheap.
07-19-2009, 07:02 PM
PatronSaintofChainsaws

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franke

Doesn´t matter what you set it to in phpBB. It can not override the php/mysql settings. If you set it to 2 and php/mysql settings are 4, it will still be 4 after you set it to 2. Thats my point.

And my point is that no such limitation exists in PHP, nor can such a setting be configured via php.ini. Granted, having an extension like memcache or xcache enabled might activate some bizarre limitations that I'm not familiar with (although I've used both and never encountered such a thing), but as far as I am aware, there's no such limitation.
07-19-2009, 07:09 PM
Pugwash

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatronSaintofChainsaws

And my point is that no such limitation exists in PHP, nor can such a setting be configured via php.ini. Granted, having an extension like memcache or xcache enabled might activate some bizarre limitations that I'm not familiar with (although I've used both and never encountered such a thing), but as far as I am aware, there's no such limitation.

As far as I have understood it, he's talking about it being in the PHP source code for phpBB. If you don't have r/w access to the phpBB code, you can't change the minimum search length indexed.
07-19-2009, 09:03 PM
PatronSaintofChainsaws

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pugwash

As far as I have understood it, he's talking about it being in the PHP source code for phpBB. If you don't have r/w access to the phpBB code, you can't change the minimum search length indexed.

It's not, it's in the Admin control panel, under Search Settings. I'm looking at it on one of my BBs right now.

For vBulletin, it's the Search Index Minimum Word Length setting under Message Searching Option.

You may need to modify my.cnf (for MySQL) and add the following for fulltext search:

Quote:

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=3

[myisamchk]
ft_min_word_len=3

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/...variables.html

Default value is supposedly 4, but strangely enough, I'm running a MySQL version that's a few months old, I don't have a specific ft_min_word_len set, and yet it's been indexing correctly as per my 3 character setting in phpBB on that board.

As I said, it's not a PHP limitation.

Anyway, an additional problem is that they'd have to rebuild the search index. Given that this is a fairly busy board, that might not be very fun.
07-20-2009, 04:25 AM
Franke

I stand corrected on the php part. About mysql you are also right, those are the correct params.

The minimum length of words to be indexed is defined by the ft_min_word_len system variables. The default minimum value is four characters.

ft_min_word_len
Command Line Format --ft_min_word_len=#
Config File Format ft_min_word_len
Option Sets Variable Yes, ft_min_word_len
Variable Name ft_min_word_len
Value Set
Type numeric
Default 4
Min Value 1

If you change this value, you must rebuild FULLTEXT indexes. For example, if you want three-character words to be searchable, you need to edit my.cnf and set the ft_min_word_len variable by putting the following lines in an option file:

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=3

Then restart the server and rebuild your FULLTEXT indexes.

Repgeek is not currently running under fulltext, hence not beeing able to process boolean search. This needs to be fixed first in admincp.

Then you need to change the mysql setting. If the server is dedicated this should be no problem, and a restart only takes a few minutes.

However, if the forum recides at a webhotel (like my forum) and the webhotel has fixed settings this is not possible. Search will always be what mysql wants it to be and in most cases this means 4 caracters.

Apart from all this: As long as the crew don´t want this, it will definately not happen.
07-21-2009, 12:13 AM
rex450

I am noticing that there are bad searches :)

Like for me "rex" won't work anymore.
07-21-2009, 04:07 AM
sixbennetts

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatronSaintofChainsaws

It's not, it's in the Admin control panel, under Search Settings. I'm looking at it on one of my BBs right now.

For vBulletin, it's the Search Index Minimum Word Length setting under Message Searching Option.

You may need to modify my.cnf (for MySQL) and add the following for fulltext search:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/...variables.html

Default value is supposedly 4, but strangely enough, I'm running a MySQL version that's a few months old, I don't have a specific ft_min_word_len set, and yet it's been indexing correctly as per my 3 character setting in phpBB on that board.

As I said, it's not a PHP limitation.

Anyway, an additional problem is that they'd have to rebuild the search index. Given that this is a fairly busy board, that might not be very fun.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franke

I stand corrected on the php part. About mysql you are also right, those are the correct params.

The minimum length of words to be indexed is defined by the ft_min_word_len system variables. The default minimum value is four characters.

ft_min_word_len
Command Line Format --ft_min_word_len=#
Config File Format ft_min_word_len
Option Sets Variable Yes, ft_min_word_len
Variable Name ft_min_word_len
Value Set
Type numeric
Default 4
Min Value 1

If you change this value, you must rebuild FULLTEXT indexes. For example, if you want three-character words to be searchable, you need to edit my.cnf and set the ft_min_word_len variable by putting the following lines in an option file:

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=3

Then restart the server and rebuild your FULLTEXT indexes.

Repgeek is not currently running under fulltext, hence not beeing able to process boolean search. This needs to be fixed first in admincp.

Then you need to change the mysql setting. If the server is dedicated this should be no problem, and a restart only takes a few minutes.

However, if the forum recides at a webhotel (like my forum) and the webhotel has fixed settings this is not possible. Search will always be what mysql wants it to be and in most cases this means 4 caracters.

Apart from all this: As long as the crew don´t want this, it will definately not happen.

SPEAK ENGRISH!!!

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/j...nnetts/omg.png
07-21-2009, 04:30 AM
PatronSaintofChainsaws

Quote:

Originally Posted by sixbennetts

SPEAK ENGRISH!!!

Big man have small number where large number should go. Large number top quality, A+++++++++.

Large number make happy feeling all of the time.
07-21-2009, 06:48 AM
Franke

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatronSaintofChainsaws

Big man have small number where large number should go. Large number top quality, A+++++++++.

Large number make happy feeling all of the time.

Well, if nothing else works, you can always remove that stupid avatar of yours.
07-21-2009, 06:56 AM
J-C

Search index is requiring a bit of extra tweaking ... we have quite a few projects/upgrades we're working on.

It's on the list, please be patient.
07-29-2009, 09:53 PM
Drhulee

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-C

Search index is requiring a bit of extra tweaking ... we have quite a few projects/upgrades we're working on.

It's on the list, please be patient.

Not sure what's going on in the above posts :) but it's good to know that you're planning on doing something about the search system.
07-29-2009, 10:16 PM
peaece13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drhulee

Not sure what's going on in the above posts :) but it's good to know that you're planning on doing something about the search system.

+1

thanks for the update jc
07-30-2009, 05:01 AM
Franke

Is repgeek running on a private, dedicated server, or is hosted at a webhotel?

If its indeed running on a private server whit access to all settings, this can easily be fixed. If, however, a webhost is involved, it´s up to them to tweak the nessesary mysql settings.