in reply to Using DBIx::FullTextSearch

This is *somewhat* interesting. I say somewhat because you've not really added a conclusion to your experience of inplementation.

Personally, what I'd like to see is pros, cons, preformance results (both time, and search semantics) and a general opinion of weather or not you think this exercise was worthwhile, and what kind of applications you'd use it for (ie how far do *you* think it will scale)..

None the less, an interesting article on the implementation...

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Re: Re: Using DBIx::FullTextSearch
by trs80 (Priest) on Mar 04, 2003 at 13:51 UTC
    Pros
    • CPAN available
    • Implement in a short period of time if you have existing databases
    • Keeps search information inside the same container as the data
    Cons
    • Requires knowledge/familiarity with DBI, MySQL, and Perl data strucutures. Which may make it difficult to use for newer users of Perl.
    • Only works with MySQL
    • Could impact database performance if search is perfromed on the same database as the data in heavily loaded systems.

    Performance Results

    There is really no reason for me to do this at the scale of the application this was applied to. There is no noticable latency even when the search is performed over 100Mbps connected servers.

    Worthwhile

    The exercise worthwhile for several reasons:
    • Reused existing code
    • Provided results that were much more accurate
    • Scripts produced will allow for easier future implementations on other projects
    • Provided support for search modifiers (AND, OR, +)


    Where to use it (will it scale)
    • Since I have not done any performance tests I can't possibly predict how far this would scale, but speaking from my own install with roughly 5MB of searched content the seat of the pants performance is acceptable

    The system has been online now for 6 months and it has satisified the clients search requirements as well as aided site visitors in locating the information of interest to them. The solution is implemented on a mod_perl enabled Apache server with ~30,000 visitors per month at peak.
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