Re: Full Text Search

Robert Cottrell
2005-09-13T21:44:10Z

We have been using MySQL-based full text search on 43 Things with
great success.  It''s fast, easy to set up, and doesn''t require
administering any external systems.

Our set up is a little complicated because of MySQL quirks.  We want
to keep all of our data in InnoDB tables for transactional data
integrity but fulltext indexes only work on MyISAM tables.  Our
solution is to have an after_save callback that updates a matching
MyISAM table.

To improve search results, we actually store pre-stemmed text (using
the Porter stemmer module)  in the shadow tables, and then stem the
query text before running the search.

There are also some tricks we play with the fulltext indexes to get
tag intersection browsing, but that''s quite a bit more complicated
than simple text searches.

Thanks,
-Bob.

On Sep 13, 2005, at 2:21 PM, Tom Davies wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am looking to add some full text search capabilities to my Rails
> apps.  I have seen a few references to ruby Odeum... but have not had
> a chance to try it.
>
> I am also considering using MySQL''s built-in full text search:
> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/fulltext-search.html
>
> Do any of you have experience with either of these and can comment on
> their strengths/weaknesses.  Right now, I am leaning towards the MySQL
> one because it just looks so easy :)
>
> I am also aware of Lucene, but that is not an option at this time as I
> am running on TextDrive.
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
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