[TYPO3-dev] Fulltext searches

[Ernesto Baschny [cron IT]]

Martin Kutschker wrote: on 08.04.2008 09:46:

>> Is there a way to get a "words list" from an MySQL FULLTEXT search 
>> index? For example: give me all words starting with "abc*"?
> 
> Yes:
> 
> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/fulltext-boolean.html

Ok, I cannot find the function to do that. I don't want to get the rows 
that contain certain words, I want to get a list of words from the 
FULLTEXT index. So in an ajax autocompletion, when I start typing "abc", 
I could query MySQL to give me a list of words to "auto-complete". This 
is possible with indexed_search "words" table, there is even an 
extension to add that functionality to indexed_search, but I wonder if 
this would still be possible if we have mysql FULLTEXT index instead.

>> This would be essencial for ajax-based auto-completions. If this is 
>> indeed possible, I would also think about using the MySQL FULLTEXT 
>> index in some other projects.

> TYPO3 extensions? If yes, I think it would be a good idea to have some 
> kind of API for that. I still want to see some cross DB features in 
> TYPO3 (with DBAL or without).

A TYPO3 API would be nice, indeed. There are several "backends" that 
might come into mind (our own indexed_search way, the MySQL FULLTEXT 
way, using an external indexed like sphynxsearch, etc..).

The problem would be that for performance reasons I usually want to 
"join" my original tables with the result of some fulltext operation 
directly in MySQL, and this would not work if the fulltext engine is not 
"joinable" but only returns a list of "ids".

In sphinxsearch there is a nice integrated MySQL-way, but I have not 
tested it, as it requires a mysql "add-on" to be compiled on 
server-side. But it sounds very interesting to overcome the MySQL 
FULLTEXT limitations.

Cheers,
Ernesto