How do I build a search mechanism for my application?

Question

It seems to be a common requirement nowadays to have a search feature that can search almost anything you want. Can anyone give me samples or tips as to how to go about buil

Answer 1

If you want something really scalable, I guess you'll have to build first a data dictionnary, listing each table and each column in your database. The building of such a table can be fully automated.

You will indicate in this table which fields are available for straight or soft (with wild card) searching.

You'll then be able to build some nice and smart user interface where the machine will be able to find that a code such as '*823*' refer both to 'INV-0823456' and 'INV-0880823' invoice numbers, as long as invoice number field is available for soft searching. The user might even be given the option to choose which column(s) to search, as scanning all telephone numbers in the database might not allways make sense.

You should not try to index all searchable columns. A "full-index" strategy can become very costy in termes of disk volume\server overhead, and will not allways make sense for rarely searched columns. Don't worry a lot about that: users will not mind some delay in getting their answer.