I've got Ferret up and running for a Rails application and I'd like to be able to use autocomplete in my text search field so that as the user is typing each character of the search term, the index is queried for matching terms starting with those characters, and they are displayed in a list under the search box, like Google Suggest. I have searched the Ferret API but I can't find a way to do for example: Show all words in index that start with 's', then 'sp', then 'spa', etc. Thanks for any assistance.
on 13.06.2008 03:45
on 16.06.2008 13:08
Gaudi Mi wrote: > I've got Ferret up and running for a Rails application and I'd like to > be able to use autocomplete in my text search field so that as the user > is typing each character of the search term, the index is queried for > matching terms starting with those characters, and they are displayed in > a list under the search box, like Google Suggest. > > I have searched the Ferret API but I can't find a way to do for example: > > Show all words in index that start with 's', then 'sp', then 'spa', etc. > > Thanks for any assistance. Is that what google does, though? I thought the autocomplete was being filled with previous matching searches. If that is the case then you might have to save all search queries to a db. Have you seen the jQuery autocomplete plugin? It's pretty good: http://www.pengoworks.com/workshop/jquery/autocomplete.htm
on 16.06.2008 13:12
> Is that what google does, though?
Yes it is.
This problem is related to the problem I asked about the other day
about levenshtein distance.
Is this stuff exposed in Ferret?
-Rob
on 16.06.2008 14:13
On 16.06.2008, at 13:08, Max Williams wrote: >> I have searched the Ferret API but I can't find a way to do for >> example: >> >> Show all words in index that start with 's', then 'sp', then 'spa', >> etc. This might be accomplished by using a TermEnum (http://ferret.davebalmain.com/api/classes/Ferret/Index/TermEnum.html ) which basically is a list of all terms present in the index in a given field. Using term_enum.skip_to('s') should bring back the first term starting with letter 's', then get all other terms with s by calling term_enum.next as often as necessary. Never tried this, but it should work. However the 'common' way for autocomplete is indeed to base the completion on past searches, i.e. index user's successful queries and suggest matching past queries while the user is typing. If that's really not what you want, you could also build up a second index containing all the terms that occur in your data, each as a document on its own (like your own dictionary), and get suggestions from there, with fuzzy queries if you like. This can also be used for 'did you mean' stuff in case the user has a typo in his query and got no results because of that. Cheers, Jens -- Jens Krämer Finkenlust 14, 06449 Aschersleben, Germany VAT Id DE251962952 http://www.jkraemer.net/ - Blog http://www.omdb.org/ - The new free film database
on 18.06.2008 06:38
On Jun 16, 2008, at 5:12 AM, Jens Kraemer wrote: > This might be accomplished by using a TermEnum That's how I would do it. However, you have to be careful with Analyzers: if the text is stemmed, the suggestions will be stemmed. The solution would be to have an unstemmed field dedicated to this purpose. Marvin Humphrey Rectangular Research http://www.rectangular.com/
on 18.06.2008 12:39
Thanks! I will try this. I'm actually interested in the index entries, not past searches.
on 24.06.2008 11:56
Is it possible to search for fields that start with a word or phrase? Lets say I have the following fields: 1 mooning 2 moon landing 3 landing on the moon Then I would like to be able to only get The result I would like to get is: 1 and 2 if I search for moon only 2 if I search for moon landing or moon land only 3 if I search for landing Is it possible with ferret or would a simple SQL query do this better? Cheers Mattias
on 27.06.2008 14:25
Dens't anyone have some thoughts on this?
on 27.06.2008 15:47
On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 02:23:39PM +0200, Mattias Bodlund wrote: > Dens't anyone have some thoughts on this? did you have a look at http://ferret.davebalmain.com/api/classes/Ferret/Search/Spans/SpanNearQuery.html ? Not sure but it might solve some if not all of your issues. cheers, Jens >> Then I would like to be able to only get >> >> The result I would like to get is: >> >> 1 and 2 if I search for moon >> only 2 if I search for moon landing or moon land >> only 3 if I search for landing >> -- Jens Krämer webit! Gesellschaft für neue Medien mbH Schnorrstraße 76 | 01069 Dresden Telefon +49 351 46766-0 | Telefax +49 351 46766-66 kraemer@webit.de | www.webit.de Amtsgericht Dresden | HRB 15422 GF Sven Haubold
on 27.06.2008 15:53
Yes looked at that but the fields I have are often short. The constrain I'm looking for is that it has to start with the query. Like SELECT * FROM table WHERE title LIKE "term%" mattias
on 28.06.2008 00:49
27 jun 2008 kl. 15.52 skrev Mattias Bodlund: > Yes looked at that but the fields I have are often short. The > constrain I'm looking for is that it has to start with the query. > > Like SELECT * FROM table WHERE title LIKE "term%" You want to use the WildQuery alternative. That way you can use term*. Cheers, Henke
on 28.06.2008 10:21
But that doesn't restrict the search to the start of the field. dog* will match both "Wild dog" and "Dog bone" mattias
on 29.06.2008 14:45
Ahh true. Interesting situation. Need to research that a bit :) //Henke 28 jun 2008 kl. 10.20 skrev Mattias Bodlund:
on 29.06.2008 14:53
Found it! Ferret :: Search :: PrefixQuery 29 jun 2008 kl. 14.44 skrev Henrik:
on 30.06.2008 10:53
It's the same. Will match any word in the field that starts with the query. Same as putting a * after the query. I was looking at a solution where a have a special index that only contains the first word of the original field and then do the query like firstword:dog* and theholefield:dog* Should only match "dog bone" and not "wild dog". Just feels a bit strange to have to fields here. mattias
on 30.06.2008 14:26
Ahh so what you need is a whitespacestemmer? OR I'm I still missing something :) //Henke 30 jun 2008 kl. 10.52 skrev Mattias Bodlund:
on 30.06.2008 14:33
I think so. I have tried almost everything and the common missbehavior I get is that I keep getting hits where the query isn't in the start of the field but somewhere in the middle or end. mattias
on 02.07.2008 11:44
Hi! On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 02:32:27PM +0200, Mattias Bodlund wrote: > I think so. I have tried almost everything and the common missbehavior I > get is that I keep getting hits where the query isn't in the start of the > field but somewhere in the middle or end. I dont think any of Ferret's default queries will solve your problem, but given that something like SpanFirstQuery exists it should also be possible to implement a SpanFirstTermQuery... cheers, Jens -- Jens Krämer webit! Gesellschaft für neue Medien mbH Schnorrstraße 76 | 01069 Dresden Telefon +49 351 46766-0 | Telefax +49 351 46766-66 kraemer@webit.de | www.webit.de Amtsgericht Dresden | HRB 15422 GF Sven Haubold