Hi
Lately I stumbled upon some strange behaviour of the keyword search in
Koha. In our library we are using an unchanged Zebra configuration as
coming with Koha 20.11.00.
The Koha manual describes the keyword search in the following chapter:
https://koha-community.org/manual/20.11/en/html/searching.html#basic-searching
1. The manual says: "When a single word is entered, a keyword search is
performed. You can check this out by typing one word into the form and
note the number of results located. Then, repeat the search with a minor
change. In front of the search word, type ‘kw=’ followed by the same
search term. The results will be identical." I did check this out and
the result was NOT identical. Why is that so?
The following searches produce a difference of four results:
Search for: biology
* URL: .../search.pl?q=biology
* 5939 results
Search for: kw=biology
* URL: .../search.pl?q=kw%3Dbiology
* 5935 results
The following searches produce a difference of 49 results:
Search for: life
* URL: .../search.pl?q=life
* 837 results
Search for: kw=life
* URL: .../search.pl?q=kw%3Dbiology
* 788 results
2. The manual also says: "When you have more than one word in the search
box, Koha will still do a keyword search, but a bit differently. Each
word will be searched on its own, then the Boolean connector ‘and’ will
narrow your search to those items with all words contained in matching
records." I did check this out and it does not seem to be true - if I
just enter two words (biology life) I get 37 more results than when I'm
using the boolean operator AND. What is the explanation for this?
Search for: biology life
* URL: .../search.pl?q=biology+life
* 521 results
Search for: biology AND life
* URL: .../search.pl?q=biology+AND+life
* 484 results
Search for: kw=biology AND kw=life
* URL: .../search.pl?q=kw%3Dbiology+AND+kw%3Dlife
* 484 results
Especially I'm stunned because the first search does not seem to be
using the OR operator but still produces considerably more results than
the searches using the AND operator.
3. Is there maybe some undocumented use of using wildcards going on if
one is not using a search prefix?
Best wishes: Michael
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