Loosen Search Query

Hi All,

I thought I had already posted this issue, but cannot seem to find the thread so my apologies if this is a duplicate...

My client would like to 'loosen' the search terms so that when a user runs a 'Product Search' using any of the following:

billet grille
billetgrille
redbilletgrille nissan

It would basically return any product with 'Billet Grille' in the title, regardless of spacing. I'm pretty sure adjusting the query to something such as: LIKE %$search_keywords% would do the trick, but I'm not sure where to make the change. Can anyone point me in the right direction, or perhaps offer a better solution?

DiZZ:

I'm pretty sure adjusting the query to something such as: LIKE %$search_keywords% would do the trick, but I'm not sure where to make the change. Can anyone point me in the right direction, or perhaps offer a better solution?

It won't- what you need to do is a multi query against various lengths of your search string or do a remove of all whitespace in the search term and the field that is being searched.

I think what is needed is a 'loose search' contrib- returning each search with a percentage confidence level (and sorted by)

Do you know which file contains the search query?

With the OR connector used on the search, you will find:
billet grille
billet
grille

brings up all three ...

You can also utilize meta tags keywords and description for building in more combinations ...

Hi Dizz,

I think you are looking for this file:
includes\modules\pages\advanced_search_result\header_php.php

Some time ago I added this as a quick hack:

$_GET['keyword'] = trim($_GET['keyword']);

(somewhere at the top of the file)
But I am not really satisfied and will probably make other adjustments.

The part of the file you are looking for probably is:

        $where_str .= "(pd.products_name LIKE '%:keywords%'
                                         OR p.products_model
                                         LIKE '%:keywords%'
                                         OR m.manufacturers_name
                                         LIKE '%:keywords%'";

If you find your solution I hope you will post it here :smile:

Thinking about this further, SOUNDEX could possibly be a winner. Especially as MySQL has a SOUNDS LIKE expression. Run a SELECT for description SOUNDS LIKE search_clue OR search_clue SOUNDS LIKE description

hem:

Thinking about this further, SOUNDEX could possibly be a winner. Especially as MySQL has a SOUNDS LIKE expression. Run a SELECT for description SOUNDS LIKE search_clue OR search_clue SOUNDS LIKE description

There could be some big challenges with multi-lingual sites when using that approach. Something to keep in mind as you research further.

DrByte:

There could be some big challenges with multi-lingual sites when using that approach. Something to keep in mind as you research further.

That's true- SOUNDEX only works on English. Plus it won't handle multi-byte either.

paulm:

Some time ago I added this as a quick hack:

$_GET['keyword'] = trim($_GET['keyword']);

> (somewhere at the top of the file) 
> But I am not really satisfied and will probably make other adjustments.
Sorry I made a mistake, this will not help for any spacing issues, it only helps to for several other characters that the customer may enter, like "-" for example.
(which may not seem logical at first when you look at the code, which explains why I mixed up things myself too, must add a comment to this line ... )

Ah thanks anyway Paul - I guess the '%' in '%$keyword%' only accounts for actual characters, not spaces?

Honestly I think this is really minor, but my client is stuck on the idea that all users are idiots and that by 'loosening' the search query the site will become more idiot-proof.

I'd appreciate any rebuttals if you have them - LOL!

:D

If I remember correctly, all input spaces are first being used as word separators and then trimmed, and after that several other characters are converted to spaces and then ...... ?

Anyway, soundex might indeed help a bit (if the only language is English). I would certainly not call it a winner though. It's easy to beat the soundex results by some simple string replacements in PHP (even if the language is English), but for obvious reasons a php script can not be a real winner either....

I've also checked RLIKE (REXEXP) and MATCH() AGAINST () but they are not going to do what you are looking for. My ideas would be:

1: str_replace the space character into '%'s and then tacking futher '%' each end of a TRIMed search and use this as the search in the MySQL query.

2: Explode the search into an array and then use a FOREACH to create a search of 'product_name LIKE '%'.search_word.'%' and OR all the results together.

However this won't get over someone searching for 'redbilletgrillenissan' matching to 'billet grille'. But then I don't think it should- someone putting that much info into a search criteria is obviously trying to narrow down the search and probably won't be happy if the search returns every occurance of 'grille' it finds.

The more I think about this the more I get the feeling that just setting Admin->My Store->Default Search Operator to 'OR' would probably be the best solution...