I’ve just done some moderately substantial updates to my script for fulltext searches in PHP (Hypertext PreProcessing) with MySQL. Although I don’t think the changes merit a whole new version number, I’ve made enough changes to justify releasing it to the public, I think! Mostly, I’ve focused on making it easier to implement, although I’ve also made changes to make the actual searching better, as well.

The principal changes include:

  • Extended the Boolean capabilities to include the full range of MySQL boolean query options, including the “less desirable” and “more desirable” modifiers (<, >), complex queries using parentheses, and wildcard searching using the asterisk.
  • Added options to display results in either a definition list or a table format.
  • Made it far easier to customize the script to your own database: it’s no longer necessary to dive into the script and rewrite the MySQL SELECT statements or customize variables.
  • Added an option to allow the script to search on email addresses. This has been requested a couple of times, so I figured I might as well provide it as a choice.
  • Made a lot of settings controllable without diving into the script itself: heading levels, extracted text length, whether to give me attribution… 😉

My next goal is to improve the overall security of the script: but that will have to wait until later. Next week will definitely not be a week for programming: instead, it will be a week for moving.

I welcome bug reports: I’m sure they’re there – they just need to be chased down.

Read further details about the script.

Download the script now.