FreeTextTable is really great for searching, as it actually returns a relevancy score for each item it finds.
The problem is, it doesn't support the logical operator AND, so if I have 10 items with the word 'ice' in it, but not 'cream', and vice versa, then 20 results will be returned, when in this scenario 0 should've been returned.
Are there any alternative tools to search a SQL Server database? Or should I just write my own code to provide 'AND' functionality (I.E. doing two seperate searches in the scenario 'Ice'Cream' (splitting each search by spaces))
You can try SQL Search from RedGate.
It is a free tool (though not open source) - I have used it before and it is very powerful.
There is also a free SQL Search tool from ApexSQL you can try. It integrates into SSMS and can also show relationship diagrams and help with safely removing/renaming objects in your database. They do require you to leave email but the product itself is completely free. ApexSQL Search
Since you have full text search enabled to use FREETEXTTABLE perhaps you could make use of CONTAINS instead? (I have to be honest, I've not used full text search myself).
It would appear you can query like this:
SELECT Name, Price FROM Product
WHERE CONTAINS(Name, 'ice')
AND CONTAINS(Name, 'cream')
Related
In Sql Server, I have a table containing 46 million rows.
In "Title" column of table, I want make search. The word may be at any index of field value.
For example:
Value in table: BROTHERS COMPANY
Search string: ROTHER
I want this search to match the given record. This is exactly what LIKE '%ROTHER%' do. However, LIKE '%%' usage should not be used on large tables because of performance issues. How can I achieve it?
Though I don't know your requirements, your best approach may be to challenge them. Middle-of-the-string searches are usually not very practical. If you can get your users to perform prefix searches (broth%) then you can easily use Full Text's wildcard search (CONTAINS(*, '"broth*"')). Full Text can also handle suffix searches (%rothers) with a little extra work.
But when it comes to middle-of-the-string searches with SQL Server, you're stuck using LIKE. However you may be able to improve performance of LIKE by using a binary collation as explained in this article. (I hate to post a link without including its content but it is way too long of an article to post here and I don't understand the approach enough to sum it up.)
If that doesn't help and if middle-of-the-string searches are that important of a requirement then you should consider using a different search solution like Lucene.
Add Full-Text index if you want.
You can search the table using CONTAINS:
SELECT *
FROM YourTable
WHERE CONTAINS(TableColumnName, 'SearchItem')
Given your data stored somewhere in a database:
Hello my name is Tom I like dinosaurs to talk about SQL.
SQL is amazing. I really like SQL.
We want to implement a site search, allowing visitors to enter terms and return relating records. A user might search for:
Dinosaurs
And the SQL:
WHERE articleBody LIKE '%Dinosaurs%'
Copes fine with returning the correct set of records.
How would we cope however, if a user mispells dinosaurs? IE:
Dinosores
(Poor sore dino). How can we search allowing for error in spelling? We can associate common misspellings we see in search with the correct spelling, and then search on the original terms + corrected term, but this is time consuming to maintain.
Any way programatically?
Edit
Appears SOUNDEX could help, but can anyone give me an example using soundex where entering the search term:
Dinosores wrocks
returns records instead of doing:
WHERE articleBody LIKE '%Dinosaurs%' OR articleBody LIKE '%Wrocks%'
which would return squadoosh?
If you're using SQL Server, have a look at SOUNDEX.
For your example:
select SOUNDEX('Dinosaurs'), SOUNDEX('Dinosores')
Returns identical values (D526) .
You can also use DIFFERENCE function (on same link as soundex) that will compare levels of similarity (4 being the most similar, 0 being the least).
SELECT DIFFERENCE('Dinosaurs', 'Dinosores'); --returns 4
Edit:
After hunting around a bit for a multi-text option, it seems that this isn't all that easy. I would refer you to the link on the Fuzzt Logic answer provided by #Neil Knight (+1 to that, for me!).
This stackoverflow article also details possible sources for implentations for Fuzzy Logic in TSQL. Once respondant also outlined Full text Indexing as a potential that you might want to investigate.
Perhaps your RDBMS has a SOUNDEX function? You didn't mention which one was involved here.
SQL Server's SOUNDEX
Just to throw an alternative out there. If SSIS is an option, then you can use Fuzzy Lookup.
SSIS Fuzzy Lookup
I'm not sure if introducing a separate "search engine" is possible, but if you look at products like the Google search appliance or Autonomy, these products can index a SQL database and provide more searching options - for example, handling misspellings as well as synonyms, search results weighting, alternative search recommendations, etc.
Also, SQL Server's full-text search feature can be configured to use a thesaurus, which might help:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142491.aspx
Here is another SO question from someone setting up a thesaurus to handle common misspellings:
FORMSOF Thesaurus in SQL Server
Short answer, there is nothing built in to most SQL engines that can do dictionary-based correction of "fat fingers". SoundEx does work as a tool to find words that would sound alike and thus correct for phonetic misspellings, but if the user typed in "Dinosars" missing the final U, or truly "fat-fingered" it and entered "Dinosayrs", SoundEx would not return an exact match.
Sounds like you want something on the level of Google Search's "Did you mean __?" feature. I can tell you that is not as simple as it looks. At a 10,000-foot level, the search engine would look at each of those keywords and see if it's in a "dictionary" of known "good" search terms. If it isn't, it uses an algorithm much like a spell-checker suggestion to find the dictionary word that is the closest match (requires the fewest letter substitutions, additions, deletions and transpositions to turn the given word into the dictionary word). This will require some heavy procedural code, either in a stored proc or CLR Db function in your database, or in your business logic layer.
You can also try the SubString(), to eliminate the first 3 or so characters . Below is an example of how that can be achieved
SELECT Fname, Lname
FROM Table1 ,Table2
WHERE substr(Table1.Fname, 1,3) || substr(Table1.Lname,1 ,3) = substr(Table2.Fname, 1,3) || substr(Table2.Lname, 1 , 3))
ORDER BY Table1.Fname;
I'm entirely new at SQL, but let's say that on the StackExchange Data Explorer, I just want to list the top 15 users by reputation, and I wrote something like this:
SELECT TOP 15
DisplayName, Id, Reputation, Reputation/1000 As RepInK
FROM
Users
WHERE
RepInK > 10
ORDER BY Reputation DESC
Currently this gives an Error: Invalid column name 'RepInK', which makes sense, I think, because RepInK is not a column in Users. I can easily fix this by saying WHERE Reputation/1000 > 10, essentially repeating the formula.
So the questions are:
Can I actually use the RepInK "column" in the WHERE clause?
Do I perhaps need to create a virtual table/view with this column, and then do a SELECT/WHERE query on it?
Can I name an expression, e.g. Reputation/1000, so I only have to repeat the names in a few places instead of the formula?
What do you call this? A substitution macro? A function? A stored procedure?
Is there an SQL quicksheet, glossary of terms, language specification, anything I can use to quickly pick up the syntax and semantics of the language?
I understand that there are different "flavors"?
Can I actually use the RepInK "column" in the WHERE clause?
No, but you can rest assured that your database will evaluate (Reputation / 1000) once, even if you use it both in the SELECT fields and within the WHERE clause.
Do I perhaps need to create a virtual table/view with this column, and then do a SELECT/WHERE query on it?
Yes, a view is one option to simplify complex queries.
Can I name an expression, e.g. Reputation/1000, so I only have to repeat the names in a few places instead of the formula?
You could create a user defined function which you can call something like convertToK, which would receive the rep value as an argument and returns that argument divided by 1000. However it is often not practical for a trivial case like the one in your example.
Is there an SQL quicksheet, glossary of terms, language specification, anything I can use to quickly pick up the syntax and semantics of the language?
I suggest practice. You may want to start following the mysql tag on Stack Overflow, where many beginner questions are asked every day. Download MySQL, and when you think there's a question within your reach, try to go for the solution. I think this will help you pick up speed, as well as awareness of the languages features. There's no need to post the answer at first, because there are some pretty fast guns on the topic over here, but with some practice I'm sure you'll be able to bring home some points :)
I understand that there are different "flavors"?
The flavors are actually extensions to ANSI SQL. Database vendors usually augment the SQL language with extensions such as Transact-SQL and PL/SQL.
You could simply re-write the WHERE clause
where reputation > 10000
This won't always be convenient. As an alternativly, you can use an inline view:
SELECT
a.DisplayName, a.Id, a.Reputation, a.RepInK
FROM
(
SELECT TOP 15
DisplayName, Id, Reputation, Reputation/1000 As RepInK
FROM
Users
ORDER BY Reputation DESC
) a
WHERE
a.RepInK > 10
Regarding something like named expressions, while there are several possible alternatives, the query optimizer is going to do best just writing out the formula Reputation / 1000 long-hand. If you really need to run a whole group of queries using the same evaluated value, your best bet is to create view with the field defined, but you wouldn't want to do that for a one-off query.
As an alternative, (and in cases where performance is not much of an issue), you could try something like:
SELECT TOP 15
DisplayName, Id, Reputation, RepInk
FROM (
SELECT DisplayName, Id, Reputation, Reputation / 1000 as RepInk
FROM Users
) AS table
WHERE table.RepInk > 10
ORDER BY Reputation DESC
though I don't believe that's supported by all SQL dialects and, again, the optimizer is likely to do a much worse job which this kind of thing (since it will run the SELECT against the full Users table and then filter that result). Still, for some situations this sort of query is appropriate (there's a name for this... I'm drawing a blank at the moment).
Personally, when I started out with SQL, I found the W3 schools reference to be my constant stopping-off point. It fits my style for being something I can glance at to find a quick answer and move on. Eventually, however, to really take advantage of the database it is necessary to delve into the vendors documentation.
Although SQL is "standarized", unfortunately (though, to some extent, fortunately), each database vendor implements their own version with their own extensions, which can lead to quite different syntax being the most appropriate (for a discussion of the incompatibilities of various databases on one issue see the SQLite documentation on NULL handling. In particular, standard functions, e.g., for handling DATEs and TIMEs tend to differ per vendor, and there are other, more drastic differences (particularly in not support subselects or properly handling JOINs). If you care for some of the details, this document provides both the standard forms and deviations for several major databases.
You CAN refer to RepInK in the Order By clause, but in the Where clause you must repeat the expression. But, as others have said, it will only be executed once.
There are good answers for the technical problem already, so I'll only address some of the rest of your questions.
If you're just working with the DataExplorer, you'll want to familiarize yourself with SQL Server syntax since that's what it's running. The best place to find that, of course, is MSDN's reference.
Yes, there are different variations in SQL syntax. For example, the TOP clause in the query you gave is SQL Server specific; in MySQL you'd use the LIMIT clause instead (and these keywords don't necessarily appear in the same spot in the query!).
I am trying to determine what the best way is to find variations of a first name in a database. For example, I search for Bill Smith. I would like it return "Bill Smith", obviously, but I would also like it to return "William Smith", or "Billy Smith", or even "Willy Smith". My initial thought was to build a first name hierarchy, but I do not know where I could obtain such data, if it even exists.
Since users can search the directory, I thought this would be a key feature. For example, people I went to school with called me Joe, but I always go by Joseph now. So, I was looking at doing a phonetic search on the last name, either with NYSIIS or Double Metaphone and then searching on the first name using this name heirarchy. Is there a better way to do this - maybe some sort of graded relevance using a full text search on the full name instead of a two part search on the first and last name? Part of me thinks that if I stored a name as a single value instead of multiple values, it might facilitate more search options at the expense of being able to address a user by the first name.
As far as platform, I am using SQL Server 2005 - however, I don't have a problem shifting some of the matching into the code; for example, pre-seeding the phonetic keys for a user, since they wouldn't change.
Any thoughts or guidance would be appreciated. Countless searches have pretty much turned up empty. Thanks!
Edit: It seems that there are two very distinct camps on the functionality and I am definitely sitting in the middle right now. I could see the argument of a full-text search - most likely done with a lack of data normalization, and a multi-part approach that uses different criteria for different parts of the name.
The problem ultimately comes down to user intent. The Bill / William example is a good one, because it shows the mutation of a first name based upon the formality of the usage. I think that building a name hierarchy is the more accurate (and extensible) solution, but is going to be far more complex. The fuzzy search approach is easier to implement at the expense of accuracy. Is this a fair comparison?
Resolution: Upon doing some tests, I have determined to go with an approach where the initial registration will take a full name and I will split it out into multiple fields (forename, surname, middle, suffix, etc.). Since I am sure that it won't be perfect, I will allow the user to edit the "parts", including adding a maiden or alternate name. As far as searching goes, with either solution I am going to need to maintain what variations exists, either in a database table, or as a thesaurus. Neither have an advantage over the other in this case. I think it is going to come down to performance, and I will have to actually run some benchmarks to determine which is best. Thank you, everyone, for your input!
In my opinion you should either do a feature right and make it complete, or you should leave it off to avoid building a half-assed intelligence into a computer program that still gets it wrong most of the time ("Looks like you're writing a letter", anyone?).
In case of human names, a computer will get it wrong most of the time, doing it right and complete is impossible, IMHO. Maybe you can hack something that does the most common English names. But actually, the intelligence to look for both "Bill" and "William" is built into almost any English speaking person - I would leave it to them to connect the dots.
The term you are looking for is Hypocorism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocorism
And Wikipedia lists many of them. You could bang out some Python or Perl to scrape that page and put it in a db.
I would go with a structure like this:
create table given_names (
id int primary key,
name text not null unique
);
create table hypocorisms (
id int references given_names(id),
name text not null,
primary key (id, name)
);
insert into given_names values (1, 'William');
insert into hypocorisms values (1, 'Bill');
insert into hypocorisms values (1, 'Billy');
Then you could write a function/sproc to normalize a name:
normalize_given_name('Bill'); --returns William
One issue you will face is that different names can have the same hypocorism (Albert -> Al, Alan -> Al)
I think your basic approach is solid. I don't think fulltext is going to help you. For seeding, behindthename.com seems to have large amount of the data you want.
Are you using SQl Server 2005 Express with Advanced Services as to me it sounds you would benefit from the Full Text indexing and more specifically Contains and Containstable which you can use with specific instructions here is a link for the uses of Containstable:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189760.aspx
and here is the download link for SQL Server 2005 With Advanced Services:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4C6BA9FD-319A-4887-BC75-3B02B5E48A40&displaylang=en
Hope this helps,
Andrew
You can use the SQL Server Full Text Search and do an inflectional search.
Basically like:
SELECT ProductId, ProductName
FROM ProductModel
WHERE CONTAINS(CatalogDescription, ' FORMSOF(THESAURUS, metal) ')
Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Full_Text_Search#Inflectional_Searches
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345119.aspx
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1491
Not sure what your application is, but if your users know at the time of sign up that people from their past might be searching the database for them, you could offer them the chance in the user profile to define other names they might be known as (including last names, women change these all the time and makes finding them much harder!) and that they want people to be able to search on. Store these in a separate related table. Then search on that. Just make the structure such that you can define one name as the main name (the one you use for everything except the search.)
You'll find that you're dabbling in an area known as "Natural Language Processing" and you'll need to do several things, most of which can be found under the topic of stemming.
Simplistic stemming simply breaks the word apart, but more advanced algorithms associate words that mean the same thing - for instance Google might use stemming to convert "cat" and "kitten" to "feline" and search for all three, weighing the actual word provided by the user as slightly heavier so exact matches return before stemmed matches.
It's a known problem, and there are open source stemmers available.
-Adam
No, Full Text searches will not help to solve your problem.
I think you might want to take a look at some of the following links: (Funny, no one mentioned SoundEx till now)
SoundEx - MSDN
SoundEx - Google results
InformIT - Tolerant Search algorithms
Basically SoundEx allows you to evaluate the level of similarity in similar sounding words. The function is also available on SQL 2005.
As a side issue, instead of returning similar results, it might prove more intuitive to the user to use a AJAX based script to deliver similar sounding names before the user initiates his/her search. That way you can show the user "similar names" or "did you mean..." kind of data.
Here's an idea for automatically finding "name synonyms" like Bill/William. That problem has been studied in the broader context of synonyms in general: inducing them from statistics of which words commonly appear in the same contexts in a large text corpus like the Web. You could try combining that approach with a list of names like Moby Names; I don't know if it's been done before.
Here are some pointers.
I would like to run a search with MSSQL Full text engine where given the following user input:
"Hollywood square"
I want the results to have both Hollywood and square[s] in them.
I can create a method on the web server (C#, ASP.NET) to dynamically produce a sql statement like this:
SELECT TITLE
FROM MOVIES
WHERE CONTAINS(TITLE,'"hollywood*"')
AND CONTAINS(TITLE, '"square*"')
Easy enough. HOWEVER, I would like this in a stored procedure for added speed benefit and security for adding parameters.
Can I have my cake and eat it too?
I agreed with above, look into AND clauses
SELECT TITLE
FROM MOVIES
WHERE CONTAINS(TITLE,'"hollywood*" AND "square*"')
However you shouldn't have to split the input sentences, you can use variable
SELECT TITLE
FROM MOVIES
WHERE CONTAINS(TITLE,#parameter)
by the way
search for the exact term (contains)
search for any term in the phrase (freetext)
The last time I had to do this (with MSSQL Server 2005) I ended up moving the whole search functionality over to Lucene (the Java version, though Lucene.Net now exists I believe). I had high hopes of the full text search but this specific problem annoyed me so much I gave up.
Have you tried using the AND logical operator in your string? I pass in a raw string to my sproc and stuff 'AND' between the words.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187787.aspx