in reply to Search engine design

There are 2 excellent articles in Linux Journal from thier "At the Forge" columns.

At the Forge: A Simple Search Engine
At the Forge: More About Searching

Reuven's columns are aimed at novice CGI coders, they are almost always in Perl.

He discusses some simple concepts about search engines, but I would have to agree with Ovid. If you find something that works, don't reinvent the wheel. If Perlfect does not work you these articles should be a good starting place.

grep
grep> cd pub grep> more beer