Searching for Acronyms

Gambler · 30-09-2002 3:39pm #1

OK, I have had this a few times where I searched for Acronyms with only 3 letters and it was never that bad but I was just searching for something relating to ASP and it is really hampering to only be able to search for words with 4 letters or more. No-one posting in relation to ASP really posts "Active Server Pages" and it makes looking for historical posts really difficult.

Maybe the search could be changed to allow 3 letter searchs in the technology forums?

DeVore · 30-09-2002 3:59pm

put a * on the end of it.

DeV.

Gambler · 30-09-2002 4:06pm

Hmmm.. I get No Matches found when I search for ASP *...

DeVore · 30-09-2002 4:44pm

I get this thread returned. Is it possible that this is the only thread with ASP in it? hard to believe....

(I put a space in your post between ASP and * to ensure I wasnt getting a false positive).

DeV.

Hobbes · 30-09-2002 5:08pm

Nope it doesn't work correctly. Consider nearly everything has a TLA, its annoying.

Just to see if it would work, I tried searching for Ant* ANT* ant* on programming (as I spent a long time looking for a post relating to ant some time ago).

doesn't work.

regi · 30-09-2002 5:23pm

try now

Hobbes · 30-09-2002 5:45pm

Famine or feast. ANT* brings up loads of non related stuff but at least it does find what I'm looking for.

Cheers Regi.

Gambler · 01-10-2002 7:56am

/me looks for a Regi says Wh0ot! Card

Thanks big guy

spongebob · 01-10-2002 10:34am

I didn't think it worked too well either. Produced some fun results

M

Balfa · 31-01-2003 11:59pm

why can't you just lower the minimum number of letters in a search word to 1? And allow phrases in quote marks to be searched for as phrases, instead of individual words

bahh, humbug. it really puts you off searching, and then gerry or dahamsta bites yer behind off for asking a question without having first searched

Victor · 02-02-2003 7:58pm

Originally posted by Balfa
why can't you just lower the minimum number of letters in a search word to 1?

Because the number of search possibilities rises exponentially.

dahamsta · 02-02-2003 8:09pm

Because the number of search possibilities rises exponentially.

Well, that, and the fact that the search index gets far too big and slows everything down. This is why when you search, you get a search id -- the search is stored for future reference to save expensive accesses to the database. Even at four characters, the search table can be the biggest table in the database.

adam

Searching for Acronyms

Comments