On 29.10.2006, at 22:44, Clare wrote:
> Can anyone help me with doing searches using thesaurus.
>
> I really want to do searches that are simple that I make up. For
> example, a search on "TV" will bring back results that include
> "Television" and vice versa.
I''m not quite sure if I get the point of your question. Are you
looking for a thesaurus dictionary or a concept of implementing a
thesaurus based search with Ferret?
There are several thesauri available for download. WordNet, for example:
http://www.semanticweb.org/library/
These thesauri are in RDF format which is XML. You could parse an RDF
file and write it to a database or generate a huge Ruby hash for fast
lookup. You could even use a separate Ferret index as your thesaurus
database.
Implementing the search is fairly easy. Look up a search term in the
thesaurus and use the synonyms to build the actual query for Ferret.
Cheers,
Andy