Search Help Request: Full Word Match

TheSpoon

TheSpoon

Jedi
I was trying to find posts containing the word "Mach" (as in the speed of sound) the other day.

Search seems to want to find Mach anywhere in a word even when I've not specified any sort of wildcard, so I was getting a million hits on the word "Machine".

I tried putting the word in quotes, adding a space and specifying "not the word machine", but I was still getting matches on words like Macho, Machaelle, Machuca.

example: "Mach " -machine

Any way to force search to do a full word match, preventing it from matching partial word?

Regards,
The Spoon
 
PepperFritz said:
Mmmmmm, there doesn't seem to be a way around that, as far as I can see.....
Click to expand...

for simple machines (SMF), there is a mod that will enhance the search function. i don't know if the technicians of this fully operational death star :) would be willing to add it or not... with SMF mods there is always the risk of security holes and such. however, this particular one seems to actually tighten up the functionality of the forum search. and, save someone passing functions through the form input (which SMF has some safeguards against), i don't think there's a huge amount of risk involved....

_http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=887

here's the features as listed on the above page:

1. Significant reduction of missing results (now very rare)
2. Less noise and therefore reasonably better relevance
3. Hugely improved ranking algorithm (when using FullText index)
4. Enhanced phrase search
5. Intelligent handling for '(apostrophe), .(period), and –(dash)
6. Supports short keywords (3 characters or less)
7. Supports stopwords (clichés)
8. Active board ranking heuristic (based on mouser’s suggestion)
9. Expand/foldable result summary
10. Viewing all matching posts in a topic with one click
11. Ability to sort search results live
12. Quick dropdown search box
Click to expand...

edit: this also has french and spanish language support built in, so it may come in handy if the older posts from the french and spanish sott forums are ever brought into the current framework.
 
Okeydokey, we now have a better search function.

Pay close attention to the "Match Mode". One of the options is "match whole words only". It won't ONLY match whole words (despite what it says!!), but it seems to give much better results, and it's easier to refine your searches now.

Also, in the search results, look under the "Replies" column. The first number will be hyperlinked. If you click it, it will perform the same search on all the replies in that topic that include your search term.

:D
 
Kresnik said:
Okeydokey, we now have a better search function.
Click to expand...

And now we have a better "simple search" in the upper right corner of the screen (when you're logged in).

You can now specifically select to search within the current topic, current board, the whole forum, or do a Google site search - no matter what page in the forum you are viewing. It still defaults to the old behavior of automatically choosing "this topic" or "this board" if you are viewing one.

Thanks JonnyRadar for pointing me to the search mod. I tried searching their site two days ago, and it was completely inaccessible. Today it's working nicely though.

:rockon:
 
Kresnik said:
Thanks JonnyRadar for pointing me to the search mod. I tried searching their site two days ago, and it was completely inaccessible. Today it's working nicely though.
Click to expand...

:rockon: glad i could help. nicely done on putting it into the simple search, it works great!
 
Thanks very much for that, Kresnik. Great result.

"Mach" going straight to the desired results now.

Kind Regards,
The Spoon
 
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