SQLY Full-Text Search

📖 Introduction

Full-text search (FTS) enables powerful searching capabilities over large text fields. SQLY supports FTS with advanced matching techniques, ranking, and filtering.

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🔍 Basic Full-Text Search

The full_text_search operator searches for keywords within text fields.

✅ Example 1: Search for Articles Containing “Machine Learning”

query:
  select: [id, title, content]
  from: articles
  where:
    content:
      full_text_search: "machine learning"

This query retrieves all articles that mention “machine learning” anywhere in the content.

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🔠 Phrase and Proximity Search

FTS allows searching for exact phrases and nearby words.

✅ Example 2: Exact Phrase Match

query:
  select: [id, title]
  from: articles
  where:
    content:
      full_text_search:
        phrase: "deep neural networks"

This ensures that “deep neural networks” appears exactly as typed.

✅ Example 3: Words Within Close Proximity

query:
  select: [id, title]
  from: articles
  where:
    content:
      full_text_search:
        near:
          words: ["AI", "ethics"]
          distance: 5

This finds instances where “AI” and “ethics” appear within 5 words of each other.

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🔝 Ranking and Relevance

SQLY supports ranking results based on relevance.

✅ Example 4: Rank Articles by Relevance to “Cybersecurity”

query:
  select: [id, title, rank]
  from: articles
  where:
    content:
      full_text_search: "cybersecurity"
  order_by: rank DESC

This ranks articles based on how relevant they are to “cybersecurity.”

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📂 Searching Multiple Fields

FTS can search across multiple text fields simultaneously.

✅ Example 5: Search Across Title and Content

query:
  select: [id, title]
  from: articles
  where:
    or:
      - title:
          full_text_search: "quantum computing"
      - content:
          full_text_search: "quantum computing"

This searches for “quantum computing” in both the title and content fields.

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📌 Summary

• full_text_search enables keyword-based search.
• Use phrase for exact matches and near for proximity searches.
• rank orders results based on relevance.
• Multi-field search expands search scope.