Hi all. It’s time to choose a search system for a new app i’ve been
working on and though i’d crowdsource some wisdom. I’ve used
ferret/acts_as_ferret before and encountered some problems which make me
reluctant to use it again. I know people are using sphinx/solr these
days (and other things i’m sure).
My particular requirements are to do with complex joins: when i do my
search i’m joining lots of tables together and passing various
conditions to do with the join tables, using a search term (which at the
moment is just doing a LIKE match on a keywords field), sorting by one
of the joined fields, and of course paginating the results. Obviously,
LIKE searches on a text field isn’t very scalable (especially in innodb
mysql which doesn’t allow full text indexing) and it’s this aspect that
i need to replace with a proper indexed search system.
It was the combination of searching, sorting, joining and paginating
that seemed to cause problems for ferret and i wondered if anyone could
recommend a search system that works well with this sort of usage.
Sorry if that’s a bit vague, just looking for some accounts of
experiences really. Grateful for any advice - max
Hi all. It’s time to choose a search system for a new app i’ve been
working on and though i’d crowdsource some wisdom. I’ve used
ferret/acts_as_ferret before and encountered some problems which make me
reluctant to use it again. I know people are using sphinx/solr these
days (and other things i’m sure).
My particular requirements are to do with complex joins: when i do my
search i’m joining lots of tables together and passing various
conditions to do with the join tables, using a search term (which at the
moment is just doing a LIKE match on a keywords field), sorting by one
of the joined fields, and of course paginating the results. Obviously,
LIKE searches on a text field isn’t very scalable (especially in innodb
mysql which doesn’t allow full text indexing) and it’s this aspect that
i need to replace with a proper indexed search system.
Then don’t use InnoDB. Switch to PostgreSQL, which (among other
advantages) allows full-text indexing and referential integrity on the
same table.
I don’t see why you need a search plugin here at all.
It was the combination of searching, sorting, joining and paginating
that seemed to cause problems for ferret and i wondered if anyone could
recommend a search system that works well with this sort of usage.
Sorry if that’s a bit vague, just looking for some accounts of
experiences really. Grateful for any advice - max
Thanks Marnen but i don’t want to switch from mysql to postgres right
now. Can anyone actually recommend a search plugin rather than telling
me i don’t need one?
Thanks Marnen but i don’t want to switch from mysql to postgres right
now.
Then you’ll have to put your full-text-indexable field in a MyISAM
table. Yuck. You can do it, but switching to Postgres will give you
fewer problems. (Postgres has numerous other advantages too.)
Can anyone actually recommend a search plugin rather than telling
me i don’t need one?
Why? IMHO you’re just making your life harder by asking for what
appears to be an unnecessary tool. If you think I’m wrong, please
explain why you believe you need one in light of what’s already been
suggested in this thread.
Well, fast text searching without switching to MyIsam/Postgres for a
start. But also the ability to automatically deal with pluralisation
and (probably at some point) fuzzy matching. Definitely the
pluralisation at least, anyway.
[Please quote when replying, so that the discussion is easier to
follow.]
Max W. wrote:
Well, fast text searching without switching to MyIsam/Postgres for a
start.
Essentially impossible. You need an index for that. The way to get a
full-text index is to switch to MyISAM or, better, Postgres. Building a
full-text index in the application layer is poor practice and less
maintainable.
Moral: let the DB do the indexing. If your DB doesn’t support the
indexing you need, change your DB – proper indexing is vital.
But also the ability to automatically deal with pluralisation
and (probably at some point) fuzzy matching. Definitely the
pluralisation at least, anyway.
On 30 Jun 2010, at 16:03, Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:
indexing you need, change your DB – proper indexing is vital.
… or use a dedicated indexing server like Solr. Depending on the
features you want, having an external indexer can even be beneficial
to your application. I haven’t followed this thread all too much, but
you could easily add pluralization to the index record when using
something like Solr.
Best regards
Peter De Berdt
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