Updated Forum Search Index Min Word Length to 2 Chars and Added Quick Search Bar

Today I changed the forum mysql database to permit 2 letter searches:

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=2

I rebuilt the mysql search indexes as well.

Then, I added a "quick search bar" at the top of each page.

I have tested this and two letter searches are working; but it's not perfect, because special characters like dashes seem to not count toward the word length.

This means, for example, these searches work:

grep -vi
ps -ef

However, these searches fail:

grep -v
grep -i
netstat -a

If anyone is an expert in MySQL and knows how to get around this limitation without setting the min word length to one, please let me know. I'm not inclined to set the fulltext search index to a minimum word length of one.

Cheers.

Update:

I had to change this back to three because the load was killing the server:

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=3

Sorry, our database is too large for ft_min_word_len=2 .

That was a disaster. The load average shot up to over 50 and was averaging around 40 after making the change. Now it is back to normal (less than 2).

On the other hand, the indexes were build with ft_min_word_len=2 so they seem to still work at the moment.