Can't search for three-letter words?
 

Hi,

It used to be possible to search for three-letter words, like XBT. Why is this no longer possible?

We now use the mysql full text search, and the minimum size is four letters.

If you don't change the default configuration. So, could you change the configuration to 3?

No we cannot, we have no control on such matters - we run on the main Jelsoft servers (that all Jelsofts sites run on) and I doubt they will want to reduce the setting to three.

Why do you doubt that?

So why not switching back to vb search again?

cause then you could search for things like 'png fix' and find the thread for it.

And that would be bad because ...?

Cause then we could find things we are looking for?

/sarcasim.

This change was made because searching was causing search.php to time out and throw an error due to the number of records it was having to sort through. While it's possible to allow 3-letter words to be searchable with FULLTEXT searching turned on it's not something that can be changed from the admincp. Allowing 3-letter words would also fill the index up with a ton of new data that is bound to slow searching down again.

It's a catch-22 until someone comes up with a better way of searching records in a mySQL database. If your forum ever gets as large as this one you'll have the same problem. :)