Implementing Full Text and Boolean Searches for a Search Engine Built with AJAX
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Do you want to learn how to create a fully-functional AJAX-driven search engine in a few easy steps? Then read this group of instructive tutorials on the subject. Welcome to the final installment of the series “Building a search engine with AJAX.” In three articles, this series walks you through the process of developing a search application which utilizes HTTP requester objects to perform searches in the background.
If you read the previous tutorial, then certainly you’ll know that building a simple search engine with AJAX is indeed a comprehensive project which can be developed without demanding too much hard work from us. Naturally, the more features you want to add to the application, the more knowledge on web programming you’ll need, but this doesn’t imply that you have to be an experienced developer to include this kind of program into existing websites.
True to form, AJAX offers a handy set of methods and properties. When these are used properly, they make creating applications like this search engine a no-brainer process.
Now, and returning to the topics covered on the previous tutorial, I’m sure that it’ll be fresh in your mind how I created the search engine in question. Not only did I define all its respective client-side code, but I also created the required PHP classes for performing searches against a selected database.
In addition, you’ll remember clearly that the current incarnation of the application presents some drawbacks concerning the implementation of searches with MySQL. Why am I saying this? Well, as you’ll recall from the second article, all the SELECT queries executed against the sample database table used the “LIKE” statement to match the search term entered in the corresponding input form.
However, this is rather limited if you’re used to working with large amounts of data and with multiple databases. Performing a search with a LIKE command can be a real time consumer -- literally -- if you’re immersed in the demanding scenario that I just described.
For this reason, in this last part of the series I’ll introduce some modifications to the original search engine. They will allow the implementation of the popular full-text and Boolean searches. Hopefully, these changes will improve the overall application by expanding its range of utilization to larger projects.
Ready to tackle the final part of this series? Okay, let’s get going!
Next: Reviewing the core module >>
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