[Resolved] Search

[ritu]

I have to search patterns from the data stored in the database.Which one of the following would be the preferred way...

1) using regular expressions with the ereg functions
2) using regular expressions with perl compatible functions
3) or use the fulltext index of mysql for searching

[Roger_Ramjet]

Unless there is something you have not told us then the fulltext search is the most efficient way to do it. The regular expression solutions would be for situations where full text just does not fit.

[ritu]

Yes, fulltext at times gives wrong results when the string to be searched is a fairly general one, or when the data in db is too less, otherwise its giving good results. So I would use fulltext index for searching text fields, and ereg etc for other simple fields.
I was just thinking whether i shud use fulltext or not, u cleared my doubt.
Thanks for the reply