How to allow fulltext searching with hyphens in the search query

Question

I have keywords like \"some-or-other\" where the hyphens matter in the search through my mysql database. I\'m currently using the fulltext function.

Is there a way

Answer 1

Some people would suggest to use the following query:

SELECT id 
FROM texts
WHERE MATCH(text) AGAINST('well-known' IN BOOLEAN MODE)
HAVING text LIKE '%well-known%';

But by that you need many variants depending on the used fulltext operators. Task: Realize a query like +well-known +(>35-hour <39-hour) working week*. Too complex!

And do not forget the default len of ft_min_word_len so a search for up-to-date returns only date in your results.

Trick

Because of that I prefer a trick so constructions with HAVING etc aren't needed at all:

1. Instead of adding the following text to your database table:

   "The Up-to-Date Sorcerer" is a well-known science fiction short story.

   copy the hyphen words without hypens to the end of the text inside a comment:

   "The Up-to-Date Sorcerer" is a well-known science fiction short story.

2. If the users searches for up-to-date remove the hyphen in the sql query:
   MATCH(text) AGAINST('uptodate ' IN BOOLEAN MODE)

By that you're user can find up-to-date as one word instead of getting all results that contain only date (because ft_min_word_len kills up and to).

Of course before you echo the texts you should remove the comments.

Advantages

• the query is simpler
• the user is able to use all fulltext operators as usual
• the query is faster.
• If a user searches for -well-known +science MySQL treats that as not include *well*, could include *known* and must include *science*. This isn't what the user expected. The trick solves that, too (as the sql query searches for -wellknown +science)