Search function omitting words... found database solution!

So far I like the new BB, except for one thing… the search function has a tendency to “skip” words if it thinks they’re too common or too short. For example, I did a search for ‘Dodge Ram,’ and it skipped the ‘Ram’ because it was too short. Unfortunately, that meant I was given a total of 103 threads to search through, most of them not having to do with trucks.

Any way I can set it so it includes those “too common/too short” words? I tried the usual (putting the phrase in quotes, which gave me nothing; using AND or +; etc.), but so far no go.

Thanks!!

-Kendall

I’m computer semi-literate and have no idea, but did you try searching for Dodge Truck? lol. I too am having this trouble with the new search function. Maybe there is some way to edit your personal search preferences? Computer gurus?

Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller?

Hmm, using quotes or + usually works. Commas don’t seem to help either …

I bet there’s a trick to it somewhere.

Sorry I couldn’t help!

Looks like it’s something Erin would have to fix…

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/search_type

The default minimum value for a word is 4 characters long.

Yeah, it’s definitely a database thing - I asked a friend who’s familiar with vBulletin. Now to convince Erin…

I tried “Dodge Ram” and got no responses at all, so then I tried “hunter hair” and got several pages of responses but most of them were of the hunter and hair variety, not the specific thread I was looking for (the one with the nylons). Erin - a tutorial for this database please?

Bumping this back up just in case… doesn’t make sense why vBulletin would default to 4 character words, don’t they know that people need at least 3? Or even 2? :winkgrin:

And just 'cause I’m a nerd and like SQL…

[INDENT]vBulletin supports two types of search indexing. Fulltext searching uses a search index that is constructed by MySQL itself, whereas vBulletin’s own search feature uses its own index.

By default, vBulletin will use its internal indexing feature. The results of this indexing process is stored in two tables, word and postindex. This provides a fast search mechanism but can cause problems on larger forums due to the ever increasing size of these tables. Each unique word is indexed in the word table and each occurrence of the word is indexed in the postindex table. To get around the large amount of space these tables can occupy we implemented MySQL Fulltext Search. The search type screen allows you to switch between the two of these. It is a simple toggle so submitting the screen switches between the two modes.

…

Note:
The minimum and maximum length of words to be indexed is defined by the ft_min_word_len and ft_max_word_len system variables (available as of MySQL 4.0.0). The default minimum value is four characters. … For example, if you want three-character words to be searchable, you can set the ft_min_word_len variable by putting the following lines in an option file:

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=3

Then restart the server and rebuild your FULLTEXT indexes. Also note particularly the remarks regarding myisamchk in the instructions following this list.[/INDENT]