UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads 7 Bug Reports Non Bugs 7.0.2: Search of 3 characters or less

V7.0.2
The 'Minimum Searchable Word Length' variable appears to work properly in that searching for a string less than the value set does indeed respond with: "We can not proceed, All of your search keywords were too short. Please try again."

However, regardless of the 'Minimum Searchable Word Length" setting, searching for strings of 3 or less characters will always result in "We can not proceed, There are no results for your query. Please try a broader range of search criteria." I.E., setting the minimum length variable to '2', then searching for any three character combination will deliver no results.

Is this a limitation in mySQL full text boolean search? If so, it should be noted in the CP Search screen where that minimum value is set. UBB.c 6.7x allowed these small character string searches. My users would certainly like that back. As an example, they'd like to be able to search for "Code 53" and not have the 53 thrown out as too short a string, or ignored (Which is what the current implementation is doing).

This is a limitation of the full text searching, the smallest that it can be is 3 characters.

Well you "could" alter it but it is NOT recommended.

The default is already 4 characters and UBB has modified it to 3 characters. Modifying it even more to 2 would probably cause other issues with the software.

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=2

I would research this further on MySQL and Google though before making such changes.

Also if you don't have full control of the Server it runs on then you won't be able to change it, and I highly doubt your Provider will change it for you.

It is a limitation, and what I'm probably going to have to do is add a switch in the control panel so admins can decided whether they want to use full-text searching or the old search method which would allow for any minimum character length.

Just for the record, I've had my customers and co-workers request to have the "old" search function back. Seemed to work much better overall - not just for the 3 character min. Thanks - Maggie

NTdoc - I spoke with two different web hosts that said less than a 4 character limit with mysql would "destabilize" their server and cause all sorts of problems. M

That is sort of what I said

MySQL does not recommend it, but does seem to allow it.

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