# How to implement full-text search with OR just like google? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 17, 2006, 10:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770 "2006-05-17T10:25:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 10:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/1 "2006-05-17T10:25:14Z")
The current full-text search will return the AND collection results,for example,if we use Article.search(“aa bb”),then the articles that include “aa” and “bb” in the fields will be returned,how to return the articles that include “aa” OR “bb” effectly? A stumb method is to setup two queries respectly and collect them together with remove the repeated items,how ever paginator will be very difficult to use because it is hard to locate the offset when processing the next page. How google do that? if we input aa bb in the search box,the results has the relation of OR but not AND,with paginator followed. Can anybody help me with that? Thanks a lot ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 10:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/2 "2006-05-17T10:42:29Z")
Hey George, a little mor information please… What are you using to provide your fulltext-feature: [http://poocs.net/articles/2006/04/06/introducing-acts\_as\_searchable](http://poocs.net/articles/2006/04/06/introducing-acts_as_searchable) or [http://projects.jkraemer.net/acts\_as\_ferret/wiki](http://projects.jkraemer.net/acts_as_ferret/wiki) or something completely different. By the way: Google returns “AND” results at least for the highest ranked results as well. This is what the user is expecting when he is typing in more than one word. IMHO it would be most user friendly to return “AND” results if there are some, “OR” if not (and show the user that there are no results for his “AND” query). Maybe you might give the user the opportunity to search more vague (by “OR”) if there were already “AND”-results returned… Regards Jan ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 11:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/3 "2006-05-17T11:01:05Z")
Thanks,i will try acts\_as\_ferret But I can not start the demo app: F:\Download\acts\_as\_ferret\_trunk\demo\>ruby script/server =\> Booting WEBrick… F:\Download\acts\_as\_ferret\_trunk\demo\> The webrick aborted unnormally,if i install the plugin to my own app,same abort happens,can u tell me the reason? Jan P. wrote: > Hey George, > > a little mor information please… What are you using to provide your > fulltext-feature: > [http://poocs.net/articles/2006/04/06/introducing-acts\_as\_searchable](http://poocs.net/articles/2006/04/06/introducing-acts_as_searchable) or > [http://projects.jkraemer.net/acts\_as\_ferret/wiki](http://projects.jkraemer.net/acts_as_ferret/wiki) or something completely > different. > > By the way: Google returns “AND” results at least for the highest ranked > results as well. This is what the user is expecting when he is typing in > more than one word. IMHO it would be most user friendly to return “AND” > results if there are some, “OR” if not (and show the user that there are > no > results for his “AND” query). Maybe you might give the user the > opportunity > to search more vague (by “OR”) if there were already “AND”-results > returned… > > Regards > Jan ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 11:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/4 "2006-05-17T11:10:10Z")
have you installed ferret beforehand? > gem install ferret Regards Jan ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 11:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/5 "2006-05-17T11:34:35Z")
has got to be create database ferret\_demo; create database ferret\_test; of course… Jan ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/6 "2006-05-17T17:34:55Z")
Hi,Jan I have tested acts\_as\_ferret,and it perform well.However,there are two difficults that prevent me from using: 1. It does not support utf8’s searching,if i search other unicode language,it always returns nothing 2. It is difficult to combine the paginator,how to get sum of the resultsets that the paginator uses? @results = Tutorial.find\_by\_contents(@query,:first\_doc=\>10,:num\_docs=\>10) can be used to search with the offset and limit,but the sum is hard to get. Can you help with that? very thanks! George Jan P. wrote: > has got to be create database ferret\_demo; create database ferret\_test; > of > course… > > Jan ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 11:28am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/7 "2006-05-17T11:28:19Z")
The README of the demo isn’t exactly detailed, I’ve tried it myself on windows since your path indicates that your on a windows box. The steps: 1. gem install ferret 2. cd to the demo\db directory 3. mysql -uroot -p 4. create ferret\_demo; create ferret\_test; 5. use ferret\_demo; source schema.sql; - do the same for ferret\_test 6. cd to demo\config and put in values that satisfy your environment 7. cd to demo root 8. rake \>\> are there any failures? rule them out… 9. ruby script/server 10. [http://localhost:3000/content](http://localhost:3000/content) - put in some of it 11. [http://localhost:3000/search](http://localhost:3000/search) - enjoy ferret fulltext search and learn about it’s query language on [http://ferret.davebalmain.com](http://ferret.davebalmain.com) it should satisfy your needs 12. maybe / hopefully: post a patch for a better demo readme to acts\_as\_ferret trac and participate… Regards Jan ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 6:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/8 "2006-05-17T18:19:11Z")
Hi, George, may I at first ask which languages you want to index? I think you are on windows, is this right? IMHO there is still a problem with the native extension (cFerret, the superfast c library of ferret) to be build on windows. I think because of this the stemming files like \*stem\_UTF\_8\_portuguese.h stem\_ISO\_8859\_1\_italian.h \*won’t be build on your system. As I’ve understood cFerret solved many - if not all - UTF-8 problems, but as I’ve said you might be bound to the pure ruby version on windows until the problems of building cFerret on windows are ruled out. Have you got a linux box available? If you’ve got some time (but don’t hold your breath 😉 you might wait for the problems of ferret on windows being solved, or provide patches yourself: [http://ferret.davebalmain.com](http://ferret.davebalmain.com) . Have you had a look at acts\_as\_searchable and hyperestraier if this does what you need? Personally I’m preferring ferret and acts\_as\_ferret because of it’s lucene roots and a great community but hyperestraier is a superb library too and acts\_as\_searchable (which is based on hyperestraier) might be the right tool for your job… Regards Jan P. ---
**Author:** ![Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@Geogeway](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Geogeway)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-implement-full-text-search-with-or-just-like-google/60770/9 "2006-05-18T03:03:18Z")
Hi,Jan I am developing the web app under windows and plan to deploy the app on linux,therefore at first all the tasks have to be done in win32. I plan to search multi language which the most important two is English and chinese,i get nothing if the input text is Chinese.I will try both ferret and acts\_as\_searchable and have a comparison… Jan P. wrote: > Hi, George, > > may I at first ask which languages you want to index? > > I think you are on windows, is this right? IMHO there is still a problem > with the native extension (cFerret, the superfast c library of ferret) > to be > build on windows. I think because of this the stemming files like > \*stem\_UTF\_8\_portuguese.h > stem\_ISO\_8859\_1\_italian.h \*won’t be build on your system. As I’ve > understood > cFerret solved many - if not all - UTF-8 problems, but as I’ve said you > might be bound to the pure ruby version on windows until the problems of > building cFerret on windows are ruled out. > > Have you got a linux box available? If you’ve got some time (but don’t > hold > your breath 😉 you might wait for the problems of ferret on windows > being > solved, or provide patches yourself: [http://ferret.davebalmain.com](http://ferret.davebalmain.com) . > Have > you had a look at acts\_as\_searchable and hyperestraier if this does what > you > need? Personally I’m preferring ferret and acts\_as\_ferret because of > it’s > lucene roots and a great community but hyperestraier is a superb library > too > and acts\_as\_searchable (which is based on hyperestraier) might be the > right > tool for your job… > > Regards > Jan P.