# Limited Search History



## Beefnot (Jan 20, 2013)

When I am performing searches this morning (via dropdown quick search), it is not giving me results after May 2012.  Any reason why that would be?


----------



## Beefnot (Jan 20, 2013)

Oh wait, this is happening while doing advanced searches, not quick search. Google search seems to work ok.


----------



## Makai Guy (Jan 20, 2013)

Beefnot said:


> When I am performing searches this morning (via dropdown quick search), it is not giving me results after May 2012.  Any reason why that would be?


Search results are limited to the first 500 results found, to keep from running out of server memory as the results table is being built.  Using advanced search you can specify a date range to search for.


----------



## Beefnot (Jan 20, 2013)

I know about the first 500, but it is arbitrary as to where it starts counting right now or something. Intuitively, it would make since that it starts with the most recent post and then counts backward, but that isn't happening. Try for yourself, search for posts by a particular user, and the the first post won't be the most recent.


----------



## Beefnot (Jan 20, 2013)

Ok, playing around some more and it looks like the search results are in arbitrary order. They are not being returned in any chronologically sorted fashion. Why would that be?


----------



## Makai Guy (Jan 20, 2013)

I haven't the foggiest.   There's got to be some pattern, but I can't discern it. 

[Edited to add ...]

Even more mysterious, when I went back a half hour later and ran the same search, the results appeared to be ordered by post date/time, most recent first.


----------



## Beefnot (Mar 3, 2013)

Any update on this?  Advanced search has become much less useful. Would greatly appreciate looking into the following possibilities:

- Default search method for multiple search terms via advanced search would be "AND", rather than "OR" as it is currently (could have sworn it used to work that way"

- Returning advanced search results in reverse chronological order

- Being able to click on the heading of any column in the search results screen to sort results by that header

- Publish the appropriate Boolean (or otherwise) operators for manipulating search results the way one would like (e.g., "and", "or", exclude, or whatnot)

-Enable searching amid one's own subsciptions list in the User control panel ("List Subscriptions")


----------



## Makai Guy (Mar 3, 2013)

Sorry, Beefnot, but the search engine is what it is.  vBulletin gives us no options in the Admin Controls to modify its basic behavior.  We can set number of returns listed, returns per page, required time between searches, and stuff like that, but not the controls you're seeking.


----------



## Beefnot (Mar 3, 2013)

Ok, so the advanced search has never defaulted to "and" for multiple search terms? I was almost certain it used to. And there are no commands that can allow "or", "and", or exclusion within multiple term searches?


----------



## TUGBrian (Mar 3, 2013)

I thought i read somewhere that its a usergroup setting(defaulting from native search to boolean)...but ill have to go back and find where I read that.


----------



## Makai Guy (Mar 4, 2013)

TUGBrian said:


> I thought i read somewhere that its a usergroup setting(defaulting from native search to boolean)...but ill have to go back and find where I read that.



Yes, the boolean search option is turned on for TUG Members.


----------



## Beefnot (Mar 4, 2013)

When I go into advanced search and put in two search terms separated with an *AND*, I still get back search results for either/or of the terms, not only results that have all the search terms.  So this isn't working for me, or else there is a different command that needs to be used. I also tried *+, and that didn't work.

On the surface it looked like NOT was working though for excluding terms, but it is still including results with the excluded term in it.*


----------



## Makai Guy (Mar 4, 2013)

We switched to using server-based MySQL FULLTEXT search some time ago to eliminate the memory errors people were getting with vBulltin's built-in search capabilities.

Boolean searching is enabled for TUG Members as a perk of membership.  

I found this description of boolean operators in MySQL searches, but it did not reference what version of MySQL it referred to, so it may or may not apply here.  I have not experimented with any of it at this point.

The following examples demonstrate some search strings that use boolean full-text operators:
_apple banana_
Find posts that contain at least one of the two words.
_+apple +juice_
Find posts that contain both words.
_+apple macintosh_
Find posts that contain the word “apple”, but rank posts higher if they also contain “macintosh”.
_+apple -macintosh_
Find posts that contain the word “apple” but not “macintosh”.
_+apple ~macintosh_
Find posts that contain the word “apple”, but if the post also contains the word “macintosh”, rate it lower than if post does not. This is “softer” than a search for '+apple -macintosh', for which the presence of “macintosh” causes the post not to be returned at all.
_+apple +(turnover strudel)_
Find posts that contain the words “apple” and “turnover”, or “apple” and “strudel” (in any order).
_+apple +(>turnover <strudel)_
Find posts that contain the words “apple” and “turnover”, or “apple” and “strudel” (in any order), but rank “apple turnover” higher than “apple strudel”.
_apple*_
Find posts that contain words such as “apple”, “apples”, “applesauce”, or “applet”.
_"some words"_
Find posts that contain the exact phrase “some words” (for example, posts that contain “some words of wisdom” but not “some noise words”).


----------



## Beefnot (Apr 18, 2013)

I've tried several of these and I cannot get it to work.  It makes advanced search with multiple terms virtually useless.  I was poking around the internet and  it mentioned that an "IN BOOLEAN MODE" modifier feature needed to be implemented for boolean search to work.  Can you look into that?

Also, can you figure out how to get the "Sort Results by" section of advanced search to work again?  It used to at some point in the past. This random ordering of advanced search results is also a big problem.  Thanks.


----------



## Beefnot (Apr 18, 2013)

Here is a link:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/fulltext-boolean.html



> MySQL can perform boolean full-text searches using the IN BOOLEAN MODE modifier. With this modifier, certain characters have special meaning at the beginning or end of words in the search string. In the following query, the + and - operators indicate that a word must be present or absent, respectively, for a match to occur.


 


> Note
> 
> In implementing this feature, MySQL uses what is sometimes referred to as _implied Boolean logic_, in which
> 
> ...


----------



## Beefnot (Apr 18, 2013)

While I'm at it with my search wish list, is there any way that an exception could be made for certain 3-letter words in searches?  Like RCI, XYZ, SFX, and major resort abbreviations?  If this is something that is possible, I'd be more than happy to help compile a list.


----------



## SMHarman (Apr 18, 2013)

Beefnot said:


> While I'm at it with my search wish list, is there any way that an exception could be made for certain 3-letter words in searches?  Like RCI, XYZ, SFX, and major resort abbreviations?  If this is something that is possible, I'd be more than happy to help compile a list.


You can put TLA's into Google Search
http://tug2.net/Global_TUG_Search.html
and other factors
+ in front of words that must appear in your result
- in front of words that should not appear in your results etc.


----------



## Beefnot (Apr 18, 2013)

SMHarman said:


> You can put TLA's into Google Search
> http://tug2.net/Global_TUG_Search.html
> and other factors
> + in front of words that must appear in your result
> - in front of words that should not appear in your results etc.


 
Yes, although Google searches are highly sub-optimal for searching forums.  Search filters and constraints like we have in Advanced Search (e.g. title-only searches, restricting the sub-forums to search in, restricting the time period of searches, showing results as posts or threads, etc.) are not available with a Google search, and Google searches cannot exclude info contained in a user's signature and profile.  

Google searches are a last and spectacularly inferior resort.


----------

