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Odd search anomaly

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 8:11 am
by Shoppinit
I made a thread called "RS6 useful info and links" in the C5 RS6 section. When I need to find it, I use the advanced search function and search for "useful" because I always remember that that word is in the title. However, this brings up ZERO matches. Yet when I search for "info" it finds it straight away.

Any particular reason?

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:09 am
by Steve_C
Sounds like the search function isn't particularly 'useful'!

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 5:47 pm
by PhilT
This is a test to see if this word is in the search - Grandiloquent

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 5:53 pm
by PhilT
PhilT wrote:This is a test to see if this word is in the search - Grandiloquent
Grandiloquent works, but useful does not.... Hmmmm

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:00 pm
by PhilT
OK, so it seems that other phpBB powered sites have the same problem, but phpBB.com does not.

I fear this is a bug and that I may need to do an upgrade.

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:01 pm
by Shoppinit
Maybe it's on a list of excluded words like "the" or "a".

Call it a "feature" :)

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:04 pm
by PhilT
Maybe, but I don't see where that list would be. Here are the settings for our indexing backend.
Fulltext mysql

Support for non-latin UTF-8 characters using PCRE:
This search backend requires PCRE unicode character properties, only available in PHP 4.4, 5.1 and above, if you want to search for non-latin characters.
Yes

Support for non-latin UTF-8 characters using mbstring:
If PCRE does not have unicode character properties, the search backend will try to use mbstring’s regular expression engine.
Yes

Min characters indexed by search:
Words with at least this many characters will be indexed for searching. You or your host can only change this setting by changing the mysql configuration.
2

Max characters indexed by search:
Words with no more than this many characters will be indexed for searching. You or your host can only change this setting by changing the mysql configuration.
84

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:29 pm
by bam_bam
There's always a 'noise' word dictionary. Have you tested with a wildcard search? e.g. use* or usef*

EDIT: It's like that thread hasn't been indexed!?

Re: Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:35 pm
by PhilT
bam_bam wrote:There's always a 'noise' word dictionary. Have you tested with a wildcard search? e.g. use* or usef*
Thanks bam.

Noise word dictionary? I guess I need to educate myself on that one.

Use* works.

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:50 pm
by bam_bam
Use* works but it misses that thread, however it hits misspellings of useful (such as usefull). It looks like "useful" may have snuck into the noise word dictionary, seems really odd though! For example, search for usef* right now and you SHOULD hit this post, it won't happen. The noise word dictionary can also be referred to as a noise word filter, but, to be honest I've also seen it called some stupid names... anything to make life harder.

EDIT: Hmmmm, now it works or I missed it...

Re: Odd search anomaly

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:55 pm
by bam_bam
TEST

I made a thread called "RS6 useful info and links" in the C5 RS6 section. When I need to find it, I use the advanced search function and search for "useful" because I always remember that that word is in the title. However, this brings up ZERO matches. Yet when I search for "info" it finds it straight away.

Any particular reason?