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jayjay n00b
Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 34 Location: Germany
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 1:09 pm Post subject: Boolean search does not work |
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The AND, OR and NOT keywords in the search form don't work! Why?
In the comment of the search is written:
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Search for Keywords:
You can use AND to define words which must be in the results, OR to define words which may be in the result and NOT to define words which should not be in the result. Use * as a wildcard for partial matches
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Example:
Search "xfs" = 164 Results
Search "raid" = 151 Results
Search "xfs AND raid" = 201 Results
Search "xfs raid" with Option "Search for all terms" = 201 Results
So it's very difficult to find helpful entries.
Cheers JJ |
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kalle2 n00b
Joined: 18 Jan 2005 Posts: 33
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:41 pm Post subject: i have the same problem - not a user problem - very anoying |
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hi,
i have the same problem, so i am glad it is not my own fault.
i have been looking for an explaination yesterday and today, but it's hard to search without a working search function.
(i just wanted to post a similar example with the keywords root sound properties)
kalle |
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chrib Guru
Joined: 27 Sep 2003 Posts: 558 Location: Berlin, Germany
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Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 7:40 am Post subject: |
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but "and" is in the search stopword list. I think that the list is not case-sensitive and that AND is filtered out. _________________ Der Mensch kämpft um zu überleben, und nicht, um zu Grunde zu gehen. - Paulo Coelho
It is the end of all hope. To lose the child, the faith. To end all the innocence. To be someone like me. - Nightwish - End of all hope |
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ian! Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 3829 Location: Essen, Germany
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Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 8:33 am Post subject: Re: Boolean search does not work |
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jayjay wrote: | The AND, OR and NOT keywords in the search form don't work! Why?
In the comment of the search is written:
Quote: |
Search for Keywords:
You can use AND to define words which must be in the results, OR to define words which may be in the result and NOT to define words which should not be in the result. Use * as a wildcard for partial matches
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I know. That's kinda confusing.
We disabled boolean search due to performance problems a while back. I'll have a look at it soon. _________________ "To have a successful open source project, you need to be at least somewhat successful at getting along with people." -- Daniel Robbins |
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kalle2 n00b
Joined: 18 Jan 2005 Posts: 33
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Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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ok...
but then the (very reasonable) hint: "Do a search before you post a question" is obsolete because searches for one Word mostly produce hundreds of results...
So I am looking forward for a fix because I really like this forum...
chrib, AND does not work either.
best regards
kalle |
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pjp Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067
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Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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kalle2 wrote: | but then the (very reasonable) hint: "Do a search before you post a question" is obsolete because searches for one Word mostly produce hundreds of results... | Multiple word searches are still valid, and much more useful than single word searches. _________________ Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
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kalle2 n00b
Joined: 18 Jan 2005 Posts: 33
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:40 pm Post subject: Multiple searches are *not* valid |
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> Multiple word searches are still valid, [...]
Sorry, but they are not.
"alsa":157 results
"devfs": 194 results
"alsa devfs": 236 results
That's definitly not a working multiple word search!
236 can not mean that 236 results contain "alsa" AND "devfs" - that could only be 157 (if every page with "alsa" also contains "devfs")
236 results - no matter if "Search for any terms or use query as entered" or "Search for all terms" is checked...
what does it mean? |
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kallamej Administrator
Joined: 27 Jun 2003 Posts: 4975 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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kalle2 wrote: | what does it mean? |
That the search only returns a small fraction of the threads. You are probably better off searching individual forums. For instance, searching for 'alsa' in Portage & Programming gives me 203 matches, whilst 'alsa devfs' yields only 17. _________________ Please read our FAQ Forum, it answers many of your questions.
irc: #gentoo-forums on irc.libera.chat |
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j-m Retired Dev
Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 975
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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kallamej wrote: | kalle2 wrote: | what does it mean? |
That the search only returns a small fraction of the threads. . |
OK. Then you need to reindex and if that does not fix the problem, then it would be necessary to start some debugging. The search is obviously broken now. |
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Earthwings Bodhisattva
Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 7753 Location: Germany
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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Afaik searching produces temporary tables which are limited in size to prevent too high load. That could cause the different results. The search is not necessarily broken due to the fact that it returns a non-intuitive number of results. If some hits are cut at the end, it doesn't really matter. |
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j-m Retired Dev
Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 975
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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Earthwings wrote: | If some hits are cut at the end, it doesn't really matter. |
I do not want to rant but this sounds, errr, funny. Search which returns random number of results depending on the system load is not quite that much useful. Otherwise, peace. |
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Earthwings Bodhisattva
Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 7753 Location: Germany
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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You got that quite wrong. I didn't say the number of results depends on the system load. I said the size of temporary tables is limited (to a fixed size) to prevent that system load / memory usage gets too high when calculating huge tables. I know another phpbb based forum that uses a non-patched search function - the temporary search tables get that big that processes have to be killed via a cron job to leave the forum in a working state. |
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kalle2 n00b
Joined: 18 Jan 2005 Posts: 33
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Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 3:36 pm Post subject: give'em a hint |
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Well, apart from all technical issues there should be a hint for this on the search page.
I think the huge amounts of threads in this forum has something to do with the fact that the search is ......
ok, let's say you have to get used to it. |
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Earthwings Bodhisattva
Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 7753 Location: Germany
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Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 5:09 pm Post subject: Re: give'em a hint |
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kalle2 wrote: | Well, apart from all technical issues there should be a hint for this on the search page.
I think the huge amounts of threads in this forum has something to do with the fact that the search is ......
ok, let's say you have to get used to it. |
It's covered in the faq, but I agree that a warning when searching for illegal terms (or just removing them automagically) would be a useful addition. |
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thebigslide l33t
Joined: 23 Dec 2004 Posts: 792 Location: under a car or on top of a keyboard
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 8:44 am Post subject: |
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By what means/algorhythm is the search working on right now? It seems to looks for all search terms at any place in / thread. I'd like to help fix it. thebigslide_at_gmail.com. I just started working nights and have 8/hrs a day to commit to this
I'm playing with phpbb right now and found some quick hacks... Esp because this is a support forum and certain things are searched for time and again, it would help to index frequent searches in a mysql database. Also, it would be simple to add a 'Did this help you" button to bump helpful search results in the listing w/o adding too much extra bulk to the db. Another way of increasing the match rate is by including buttons that only moderators see for 'cruft post/helpful post' to keep items from be indexed and bump others. A third thought it that right now, search results only returns the name of the thread and not the post ID. This is ass backwards and makes it more difficult to index searches. |
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kallamej Administrator
Joined: 27 Jun 2003 Posts: 4975 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 9:56 am Post subject: |
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thebigslide wrote: | A third thought it that right now, search results only returns the name of the thread and not the post ID. This is ass backwards and makes it more difficult to index searches. |
Ehm, ever tried Display results as: Posts? _________________ Please read our FAQ Forum, it answers many of your questions.
irc: #gentoo-forums on irc.libera.chat |
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thebigslide l33t
Joined: 23 Dec 2004 Posts: 792 Location: under a car or on top of a keyboard
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 10:19 am Post subject: |
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apparently not |
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masseya Bodhisattva
Joined: 17 Apr 2002 Posts: 2602 Location: Baltimore, MD
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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Now that the forums URLs are Google-friendly, if you don't like the way the forums search engine works, you have an alternative. However, I have personally found the Forums search engine to be very useful. A lot of changes have been made to allow the forums search engine to search effeciently and accurately. The bottom line is that it's never going to return results as you would expect Google to return them. Well, let me re-phrase that. It's only going to return results as you would expect Google to return them if/when we get a multimillion dollar search engine farm. Anyhow, w/o further ado:
Googling alsa and devfs for the Gentoo Forums. _________________ if i never try anything, i never learn anything..
if i never take a risk, i stay where i am.. |
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jayjay n00b
Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 34 Location: Germany
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:21 pm Post subject: Performance Problems |
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So I can understand, that it is not possible to boolean search in the
gentoo forum, because the server/server farm is too weak and the
gentoo project can not afford better performance.
What i can not understand is:
Why is there still the old text in the search form and not a text, that
explains how to search? Why there is no Google search field beside
the quick search field, that generates an google search.
It's not because of me, but it's about the hundreds of users, that try to
search the forum and don't get the right information.
Cheers JJ |
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duderonomy Guru
Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 349 Location: SF Bay Area
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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My experience is that a unary search is broken.
Today, when I used the search page, in its default state,
using one term []network[] yields zero results.
However, using two terms, []network ethernet[] yields many results.
:-\ |
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Earthwings Bodhisattva
Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 7753 Location: Germany
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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network is in the stopword-list, therefore you don't get results when searching for it. _________________ KDE |
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duderonomy Guru
Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 349 Location: SF Bay Area
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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That was very helpful. Thank you.
So I suppose search is only broken in the eye of the beholder who did not read the documentation. |
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