Hi:

I have a mini-search form on all my pages. To make it work better for my use, I have included a drop-down list so you can search for the term, or search specific fields for that term. One of the specified fields is "Title".

As my site has grown, I see the need to widen that search. I have found that just "Title" is not enough. Many times, the "Title" is in a foreign language, and I have created fields for Alternate spellings... or English Translations.

So I would like the specific "Title" search to also search these related fields.

Here is the code I use now:

if ($IN->param('select') =~ 'Titles') {
print "Location: http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/search.cgi?query=&Title=$query&bool=or&substring=0\n\n";
}

If I want "$query" to search on "Title", "For_Title" and "Alt_Title", how should I do that? Can I just do this:

if ($IN->param('select') =~ 'Titles') {
print "Location: http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/search.cgi?query=&Title=$query&For_Title=$query&Alt_Title=$query&bool=or&substring=0\n\n";
}

Thanks!
dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase

Hi,

Mmm.. I'm not sure to be honest. I would imagine:

print "Location: http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/search.cgi?query=&Title=$query&For_Title=$query&Alt_Title=$query&bool=or&substring=0\n\n";

..would actually try and match the resullts from all of those fields - I could be wrong though (never actually tried to do what your suggesting =))

Does it look like it works?

You can test, by doing different searches, i.e:

http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/search.cgi?query=&For_Title=$query&bool=or&substring=0

http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/search.cgi?query=&Alt_Title=$query&bool=or&substring=0

http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/search.cgi?query=&Title=$query&bool=or&substring=0

?

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

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OK, I ran a test. A cartoon "Weiss Kreuz" has that for it's title. The English translation is "White Cross".

I ran an all fields test search for "White Cross", and that cartoon came up. I searched "White Cross" for title field only, NO HITS. Cool.

I then changed my code to:

if ($IN->param('select') =~ 'Titles') {
print "Location: http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/search.cgi?query=&Title=$query&Eng_Title=$query&Alt_Title=$query&For_Title=$query&Series_Title=$query&bool=or&substring=0\n\n";
}

and searched "White Cross"- NO hits.

So that does NOT work.

dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase

Hi,

There isn't really any simple solution I can think of I'm afraid :(

The only way I can see it working - is actually doing a "search" with the different paramaters, to see if they do actually give any results. This could get quite messy though, as it would require re-invoking a search (not as simple as just calling a basic "search", and checking the results were found - you need to do it similar to how I do it in NewSearchResults.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

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OK... I will not worry about it for now.
Thanks Andy!
dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase

Here are some tips:

1) Use print $IN->redirect($url) instead
2) The url shouldn't be html escaped (ie. & instead of & or just use semi-colons [;])
3) You should url escape the values (eg. "Title=" . $IN->escape($query))
4) No need for the regex on the if statement - if ($IN->param('select') eq 'Titles') {

Adrian