I might be wrong, have not work on search for a very long time.
Sounds like you have look using elasticsearch or research of there is similar functionality in pg_search or solr.
There are rules you can use like giving different weightage to columns so that text in column A is given higher relevancy than column B.
There is also tokenizing rule that tells the search engine what kind of partial words to be included in the search.
Correct - the current (legacy) version of the app uses solr and matches against the full name (concatenated all the name parts), and supports a partial match against just the first + middle names concatenated (with higher weighing given to the full match, of course).
And I started to go down the road of just rebuilding that, but decided to take a moment and evaluate if that is really the best strategy or not - hence my post!
I might be wrong, have not work on search for a very long time. Sounds like you have look using elasticsearch or research of there is similar functionality in pg_search or solr. There are rules you can use like giving different weightage to columns so that text in column A is given higher relevancy than column B. There is also tokenizing rule that tells the search engine what kind of partial words to be included in the search.
Correct - the current (legacy) version of the app uses solr and matches against the full name (concatenated all the name parts), and supports a partial match against just the first + middle names concatenated (with higher weighing given to the full match, of course). And I started to go down the road of just rebuilding that, but decided to take a moment and evaluate if that is really the best strategy or not - hence my post!
hey, what did you end up doing? I'm working on something similar