Getting Started With MySQL's Full-Text Search Capabilities

Getting Started With MySQL's Full-Text Search Capabilities

Getting Started With MySQL's Full-Text Search Capabilities (Page 1 of 6 )Need a rock-solid, powerful search solution for your PHP/MySQL driven web site? In this article Mitchell introduces us to MySQL's full-text and Boolean search capabilities.In February 2002 I wrote an article called "Developing A Site Search Engine With PHP And MySQL". In this article I showed you how to build a "search engine" using a keyword based approach. Notice how the words search and engine are in quotes in my last sentence? That's because it wasn't actually a search engine in the right meaning of the word. It was based on the concept of keyword searching. Today I'm going to show you how to use MySQL's extremely powerful full-text search capabilities, which you can use to build your own simple search engine. In this article I will assume that you have an intermediate knowledge of MySQL. I will also assume that you have at least MySQL 3.23.23 installed (which is when support for full-text searching was added.). You will need MySQL version 4.0 or above to test the Boolean search methods described later in this article.


Article Index:
Getting Started With MySQL's Full-Text Search Capabilities
What is Full-Text Searching?
What is Full-Text Searching (contd.)
Full-Text Rules And The MATCH Command
Performing A Boolean Search
Conclusion