Search function ignores 3-character strings

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  • TLCTugger
    Member
    • Sep 2006
    • 45
    • 3.7.x

    Search function ignores 3-character strings

    Hi,
    I'm running 3.7.2.

    How do I allow users to search the forums for three-letter strings, for example ABC?

    Presently it returns "sorry no matches" even though "ABC" is in several postings.

    Thanks,
    -Ron
  • TLCTugger
    Member
    • Sep 2006
    • 45
    • 3.7.x

    #2
    Is there a better place to post this question? Does any version support searching for short strings?

    -Ron

    Comment

    • Lats
      Senior Member
      • Mar 2002
      • 3671

      #3
      Try adding the wildcard * to the search string - ABC*
      Lats...

      Comment

      • TLCTugger
        Member
        • Sep 2006
        • 45
        • 3.7.x

        #4
        Originally posted by Lats
        Try adding the wildcard * to the search string - ABC*
        Good idea.

        Doesn't work.

        Comment

        • Lats
          Senior Member
          • Mar 2002
          • 3671

          #5
          Strange - that works on every vB forum I visit!
          Lats...

          Comment

          • TLCTugger
            Member
            • Sep 2006
            • 45
            • 3.7.x

            #6
            Originally posted by TLCTugger
            Good idea.

            Doesn't work.


            This posting includes the text " VLC Tugger " but when I use a searching string of

            VLC*

            or

            *VLC*

            then I get Sorry No Matches.

            It DOES find a match for the term TLC* when the posting contains TLCTugger smooshed together.

            To summarize, the search function appears to be ignoring all 2- and 3-letter words. I need it to consider 3-letter words.

            Thanks,
            -Ron

            Comment

            • Lynne
              Former vBulletin Support
              • Oct 2004
              • 26255

              #7
              Are you using Fulltext searching or the internal vbulletin search function? If you have it set to use Fulltext searching, then you need to modify your mysql settings to allow searching for 3 letter words and then rebuild the search index.


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              Comment

              • TLCTugger
                Member
                • Sep 2006
                • 45
                • 3.7.x

                #8
                Originally posted by Lynne
                Are you using Fulltext searching or the internal vbulletin search function? If you have it set to use Fulltext searching, then you need to modify your mysql settings to allow searching for 3 letter words and then rebuild the search index.

                http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/search_type
                Thanks. MySql is French to me, so I reverted to the vBulletin search function. It still doesn't find 3-letter words. In fact it doesn't find ANYTHING at all. What am I missing?

                -Ron

                Comment

                • TLCTugger
                  Member
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 45
                  • 3.7.x

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Lynne
                  Are you using Fulltext searching or the internal vbulletin search function? If you have it set to use Fulltext searching, then you need to modify your mysql settings to allow searching for 3 letter words and then rebuild the search index.

                  http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/search_type
                  I'm disappointed that I seem to be having to learn something wholly new to accomplish this.

                  The above article says I must put code lines "in an option file." I don't know what that is or where it's found. Is it called "option.something?"

                  It says I need to then restart my server to effect the needed change. I don't even know how to do that. Is that something I can even do if I don't have a dedicated server?

                  If I had a newer version of vBulletin would it be any easier to search for 3-letter strings?

                  Thanks,
                  -Ron

                  Comment

                  • TLCTugger
                    Member
                    • Sep 2006
                    • 45
                    • 3.7.x

                    #10
                    Originally posted by TLCTugger
                    Thanks. MySql is French to me, so I reverted to the vBulletin search function. It still doesn't find 3-letter words. In fact it doesn't find ANYTHING at all. What am I missing?

                    -Ron
                    OK, so I see that what I've done has resulted in most of my forum content NOT being searchable at all. I need to rebuild the vBulletin search feature indices, but that is not an option on any search related screen I have encountered from the admin control panel.

                    Anybody know the secret?

                    Comment

                    • Abomination
                      Senior Member
                      • Jul 2008
                      • 1244

                      #11
                      I'm no expert, but since you seem quite interested in finding more information. I found this in my 3.8 admin cp when I clicked on changing search type (little ? to the right of the option).

                      I believe if you go into the Maintanence area (last option at the bottom on the left side) you will find update counters. Specifically: I believe when changing search types you need to re-build counters. I always make changes to the test site to be sure about these things before changing the live site.
                      When switching a forum to the fulltext search mode, you will want to consider emptying the indexes that the default search engine built. These indexes are not used by the fulltext search and consume a large portion of your database. You should be certain that you are going to permanently use the fulltext search before removing these indexes since, generally, it takes a lot of time and server load to rebuild these indexes. Another consideration is during any time that the fulltext option is enabled, these indexes will not be updated by any new posts. Using fulltext search for an extended period of time will leave these indexes stale and you may still wish to rebuild them.

                      You can also empty these indexes in the Update Counters section of Maintenance.

                      You may want to optimize the postindex and word tables afterwards by going to the Repair / Optimize Tables section of Maintenance.
                      Hopefully someone with more knowledge like lynn might be kind enough to help.


                      (friendly tip: don't PM people like Lynne for help, but if people like that are online it might be a good way to get their attention by posting to this thread).

                      Comment

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