? Best Searching Method ?

phence

okay guys,
i need some direction/help to develop a search script.

Currently, a user can input some information about an item into the database. (item name and type '$itemName', problems with the item '$prob', and so on..)

Other users should be able to enter a value (name/type of item they are looking for) into a search field '$searchValue'.

The database should return all rows where $searchValue is equal to any word in $itemName.

The script should then print the search results to the users' browser neatly.

note: the $itemName, should not need to be filtered of 'noisewords' such as ' the, a , an... descriptive words ' due to instructions to the user whom inputs item information. *

Which searching methods are there, and which would be the best choise for my script? sample code?

mouloud2001

I don't know which database do you use, but if it's mysql, you just have to do a SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE itemName LIKE "%$searchValue%"

phence

yes i am using mysql. is it really that easy? i saw it used before, but i wasn't sure if it was efficeint.

mouloud2001

Well, this request will return you all the rows where the field itemName contain the word $searchValue, with everything before and after.
If you just do "$searchValue%", it will return the rows where itemName start with $searchValue, and everything else after. And so on.

dracula007

Hello everybody,
the "LIKE %" is the simpliest search available in all databases. But if you are using not too old release of MySQL (older than 3.23.23), you can use fulltext search over varchar or text columns.

All you have to do is
(1) create fulltext index
(2) search the database using "MATCH ... AGAINST ..." syntax

You can find more about these features of MySQL on http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Fulltext_Search.html

good luck

phence

which is the fastest and more efficient to use on a site with hundreds of thousands of users

LIKE %
or
MATCH AGAINST

The site will be genorating hundreds of thousands of users per week. so i am looking for the most efficient coding strategies.

thanks

phence

what about meta searching?

would it be more effecient for large amounts of item listings?

Mega

Originally posted by phence
which is the fastest and more efficient to use on a site with hundreds of thousands of users

LIKE %
or
MATCH AGAINST

??

The site will be genorating hundreds of thousands of users per week. so i am looking for the most efficient coding strategies.

thanks

MATCH orders them and is more efficient

phence

thanks man!!

icaro

Originally posted by Mega

MATCH orders them and is more efficient

Match is far more efficient. I had to rewrite some php (with mysql) codes for a internal search - on site www.webinsider.com.br

Original search was with 'like', and the database was something like 4M of text data... It was SOOO slow that the server cant answer more than 9 users/second with that sintaxe.

So I used Match-Against sintaxe... the index for fulltext growed my db 2 times, but the server was able to respond more than 100 users/second making searches.

Everything looks nice until here, but i need to say that i don't like the way mysql organizates my results. And that sintaxe doesn't allow more clear results, its too poor.. It returns things i dont want and sometimes stuff that i want does not appears.

(just sharing - sorry for my poor morning-monday english)
ic =)

phence

thank-you guys for your input