search string length...

[Gary - K7GLD]

OK, several times now when I have attempted a TDR search, I enter the word or string I want to search on, and get THIS message:

The search term you specified (be) is under the minimum word length (3) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.

If this term contains a wildcard, please make this term more specific.

In the first place, WHY need for a 3 word minimum (and "be" was NOT my search word!) - and second, even if I then provide a DOZEN word long string, I continue to get the same error message, and NO search results... #@$%!#@$%!#@$%!

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Read it again - it's not a 3 WORD minimum it's a 3 letter minimum word LENGTH. You can't have any words under 3 letters and "be" must have been one of your search words otherwise it wouldn't have it there. NONE of the words in your search can be under 3 letters long.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Read it again - it's not a 3 WORD minimum it's a 3 letter minimum word LENGTH. You can't have any words under 3 letters and "be" must have been one of your search words otherwise it wouldn't have it there. NONE of the words in your search can be under 3 letters long.

HMMmmm - I realize that's likely a program spec rather than your own, but it seems sorta dumb!



I did NOT use the word "be" as specified in the error message, but DID use "Anatomy" by itself first looking for an old thread of mine and got the quoted error message - I then tried "anatomy of a fuel" (YUP, 2 words in that string under 3 characters, and NONE of them were "be"!), and got EXACTLY the SAME message.



I gave up, went on to other things, and as has happened several previous times when I got that message, everything worked fine, as it should.



A couple of other times when I've got that similar message was on single words WELL over the 3 character limit...

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

You have to take into account the size of the database that is being searched!! vBulletin uses Mysql as the database engine and searches are done on an index of the words. If 2 character words were indexed it would be INSANELY huge! 99% of vBulletin boards have a 4 character minimum word length for searches because of that. Myself and the TDR have gone to great expense and effort to make it possible for us to search on 3 character words (custom programming, etc) because so many of our terms are 3 character terms. The post database is 1. 6Gb. If 2 character words were included you would be searching almost that entire database every time, can you imagine the resources that would be used to make that happen? The vast majority of 2 character words wouldn't even be useful in a search.

I can't explain why you would get that message if you didn't have "be" in your search. I just did a search on "anatomy of a fuel" and I get the message:

The search term you specified (of) is under the minimum word length (3) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.

because "of" is the first word under 3 characters in that search. I have never gotten that error message unless I accidentally put a 2 character word into the search. I use the search all the time and never have trouble with it and I get very few complaints on the search except for people that aren't aware of how to use it and the help screen usually gets them pointed in the right direction. I just did a search on "anatomy" and username Gary - K7GLD and received 19 results with the thread your probably looking for ( https://www.turbodieselregister.com...002/99611-anatomy-apps.html?highlight=anatomy ) as the 2nd result.

The next time you get an error that you think is odd please copy the message and go back to your search screen (use your back button on your browser) and make note of all the options on that screen (key words, search entire posts or threads, username, and all the search options) and let me know what they are so I can attempt to reproduce your problem please.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

The next time you get an error that you think is odd please copy the message and go back to your search screen (use your back button on your browser) and make note of all the options on that screen (key words, search entire posts or threads, username, and all the search options) and let me know what they are so I can attempt to reproduce your problem please.

YUP - have always done that to try to see what I did wrong and will do so next time it happens, and I retried that exact same search that had previously failed - and it worked just fine!



NOT a biggie, just a curiosity because it has happened to me on single word searches several times, always on words far larger than 3 characters.



Thanks Steve.