String Searching in SQL?

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Roedy Green - 05 Jul 2007 23:58 GMT

Consider if you had a set of documents basically text in a database.,
e.g. a website, or the SET of RFCs, or the JavaDoc for the JDK. You
wanted a way of searching the text using features similar to what a
search engine offers, but you don't just want a stand alone search
engine. You want this integrated with other database processing.

Do any of the SQL database now offer features to efficiently implement
this? Or it is up to you to extract words, prune common words, build
and maintain voluminous indexes...
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com

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EricF - 06 Jul 2007 04:18 GMT

>Consider if you had a set of documents basically text in a database.,
>e.g. a website, or the SET of RFCs, or the JavaDoc for the JDK. You
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>this? Or it is up to you to extract words, prune common words, build
>and maintain voluminous indexes...

I haven't tried it but there's a text search engine for Postgres.

http://openfts.sourceforge.net/
http://www.devx.com/opensource/Article/21674

Eric

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Hosam Aly - 06 Jul 2007 08:07 GMT

On Jul 6, 1:58 am, Roedy Green <see_webs...@mindprod.com.invalid>
wrote:

> Consider if you had a set of documents basically text in a database.,
> e.g. a website, or the SET of RFCs, or the JavaDoc for the JDK. You
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
> The Java Glossaryhttp://mindprod.com

Oracle Text may be of help to you. You can get an overview about it
from the following websites:
Oracle Text Product Homepage: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/text/index.html
Oracle Technology Network Article: http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/asplund-textsearch.html

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David Harper - 06 Jul 2007 21:27 GMT

> Consider if you had a set of documents basically text in a database.,
> e.g. a website, or the SET of RFCs, or the JavaDoc for the JDK. You
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> this? Or it is up to you to extract words, prune common words, build
> and maintain voluminous indexes...

MySQL offers server-side full-text indexing and searching.

Simply declare an index of type FULLTEXT on the TEXT/CHAR/VARCHAR table
column(s) which contains the text you want to search, then query the
table using the "MATCH() ... AGAINST" syntax.

Here's the manual section which describes this facility. It has
examples too.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-search.html

David Harper
Cambridge, England

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Arne Vajhøj - 07 Jul 2007 00:38 GMT

> Consider if you had a set of documents basically text in a database.,
> e.g. a website, or the SET of RFCs, or the JavaDoc for the JDK. You
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> this? Or it is up to you to extract words, prune common words, build
> and maintain voluminous indexes...

Most databases has such a feature. A common name for it
is "full text search".

Arne

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Lew - 07 Jul 2007 15:25 GMT

>> Consider if you had a set of documents basically text in a database.,
>> e.g. a website, or the SET of RFCs, or the JavaDoc for the JDK. You
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> Most databases has such a feature. A common name for it
> is "full text search".

In addition to the other products mentioned, PostgreSQL supports full text search.

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Lew

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String Searching in SQL?

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