Help needed with SEARCH function

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Help needed with SEARCH function

Postby Nikodemus » Dec 7th, '05, 13:05



Can someone help me with what ought to be a really simple request?

I cannot find any way to search for a phrase consisting of multiple words.
EG wanting to find topics containing the phrase linking cards. The default is to search for topics containing linking or cards. (2000+ results). There is a radio button that will change the search to look for topics containing both words (34 results at the moment). [Also you can get the same result with linking AND cards ]. But in these 34 results the two words do not necessarily occur together as a single phrase. I have tried using double-quotes - and single-quotes and it makes no difference.

Am I missing something really obvious? Or is the website lacking some pretty elementary functionality?

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Postby Mandrake » Dec 7th, '05, 13:29

The Search function is only a basic one so you'd need to use more specific words for it to work on. 'Cards' is likely to occur many hundreds of times so is best left out if possible. If you're looking for a review then you can select to look in Reviews only and that might be one way of narrowing down the results - try a section at a time until you find what you're looking for. Similarly selecting an author (if known) will limit the results quite a bit.

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Postby Nikodemus » Dec 7th, '05, 13:33

Hi Mandrake, thanks for the prompt reply.
So just to confirm - there is in fact no way to search for a multi-word phrase?
(But obviously there are other ways to refine one's search)

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Postby Mandrake » Dec 7th, '05, 13:38

there is in fact no way to search for a multi-word phrase
Not as far as I'm aware, sorry.

Of course, others may have found ways around this and might be able to shed more light :wink:

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Postby bananafish » Dec 7th, '05, 13:55

In theory quotes " should protect the string and it should be possible to do what you are asking by using them, but as you are aware that isn't the case. My guess is that the php script we use is editing out the quotes.

It is something that could possibly be rectified, our site owner is a wiz at PHP so we will ask and see what he can come up with, as I agree on occasion it would be useful to search for strings like that.

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Postby katrielalex » Dec 7th, '05, 17:26

Google search:
Code: Select all
site:www.talkmagic.co.uk "linking cards"

gives two pages, neither one helpful: http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/sutra42637.php, www.talkmagic.co.uk/sutra46877.php

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Postby Nikodemus » Dec 7th, '05, 19:12

Kati,
That is the answer!!!
Linking Cards was only an example - the point is that searching via Google allows you to specify a specific search phrase, rather than just a collection of words.
BTW I just looked on Google help - the keyword Site followed by colon & site-name allows you to restrict your Google search to one site. In this case TalkMagic.

Thanks again Kati - a true techno-magi
Nick

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Postby katrielalex » Dec 7th, '05, 22:26

No problem!

:D

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Postby ace of kev » Dec 7th, '05, 23:03

I've seen other things like that one Kati, they called it google-hacking or something :?

I know that is not it, but it reminded me of hearing about it

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Postby katrielalex » Dec 7th, '05, 23:09

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Postby bananafish » Dec 7th, '05, 23:31

Nice one kati :)

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