I strongly suggest that you read the postgresql text search[1] chapter in depth. You will find that a lot of textual and multilingual confusions can be solved with that function set. the name "text search" is by far too simple for what it covers...
Regards, Milo [1] http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/textsearch.html David Earl wrote: > On 12/01/2009 13:51, Milo van der Linden wrote: >> As Tom Hughes suggested earlier on; perhaps it would be smart to use >> postgres, >> >> especially since somany postgres/postgis instances are lying around >> for the mapnik servers that the openstreetmap community uses. My >> guess would be that a lot of people would be able to support you: >> >> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/textsearch.html >> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/fuzzystrmatch.html >> >> The textsearch module for postgresql handles records in the database >> as "documents"; giving you a broad variety of search functions. >> >> Perhaps this is the right compromis between a real search engine and >> searching records in a database. >> >> Regarding the near by; this would mainly mean "select this and that >> where searchterm="bla" and distance(the_geom, yourlocation) < x. >> >> The last query needs an extremely good design since distance >> functions perform somewhat problematic.. > > That function the starting point for writing namefinder in the first > place. > > But please be clear - this isn't just a simple text searching > application. It needs to cope with variations in language and > abbreviations and so on, and it has to cope with large numbers of > duplicate names, some of which are not the same object as another of > the same name, and some are; and as you say, the proximity - which > isn't just in the unqualified searches - the results try to give you > not just a hit ("1. Main Street, 2. "Main Street", 3. "Main Street" > ... is not helpful) but with a context so you know which is the one > you are really looking for. This is true even of place names (see the > discussions re Paris we were having a month ago). > > If we were only searching the names in the planet file or some other > plain text, life would be simple. But it is a great deal more > complicated than that to produce useful, contextual results. And I'd > be the first to agree that it isn't there yet. > > David > > _______________________________________________ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
