Search with mysql

[drewdrewdrew]

Is there a better way to search in mysql other than fulltext indexing? I'm having problems with the less than 50% rule and the dumbest part about that rule is that if the search returns more than 50% of the rows then nothing at all is shown, not even 50% of the rows. I've also toyed with select * from tablename where column like ('" . $_POST['keywords'] . "') but the keywords have to be exact whereas indexing searches in phrases. Any ideas would be cool. Gracias.

[Drakla]

After reading your other thread like this I can imagine the thing you're after - if for instance the user types in 4 words you want the highest relevance to be ones where all four are found, then three of the four, etc.

Well you could treat the terms almost like a bit pattern - 4 words = 2⁴ - 1 solutions, so put the words into an array - then do a loop from 1 to 2^4, find out how many "bits" would be set in the binary representation of that number - use each as an index into your word array then construct a query based on that like

select * from wherever where field like '%term1%' and field like '%term3%'

it's not a brilliant solution - but it's the basis for one.