Re: GSoC Project Progress Update: Apropos Replacement

[Jukka Ruohonen <jruohonen%iki.fi@localhost>]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 02:08:59AM +0530, Abhinav Upadhyay wrote:
> 1. A Stopword filter: If we are doing full text search, then we also
> expect users to enter normal queries consisting of usual English
> words

Indeed, free form queries seem like the way to go.

> 2. A ranking function: A ranking function is very necessary, so that
> Sqlite ranks and gives back the most useful results at the top. If you
> try the apropos in the master branch and the one in search branch, you
> will notice drastic difference in the quality of search results. But
> even after this lots of effort is required to improve it.

Besides the usual frequency, possible ranking scores (or "static weights")
could involve the earlier mentioned .Nm and .Nd. Say, if a word "string"
appears already in the title, it may be a better result than several
appearances of the word "string" in the body of the text.

> - What are the most important things you would look for when
> performing a search across man pages ?

It may be difficult to say because we have never had a reasonable search
utility for man pages ;-). But I think the examples you noted were pretty
much spot on; from "how to add user" and "package installation" to "kernel
memory" or "vnode locking".

- Do you like the current results ?

Yes, the results were very reasonable already.

- Jukka.