How can I implement a text search in node.js using a Postgres database?

Question

I want to add search functionality to an expressjs node application using Postgres as my database. I know how to do the filtering I'll need by date and some other column of finite values, but I don't know how to do a text search on a specific column. Given a string "chair", should my search algorithm return results with text like "my armchair", or "my chair"?

Maybe this question is so simple I'm just overlooking something. Thanks!

If you don't want to use an external search engine (Solr, ElasticSearch, ...) you can use Postgres' built-in full-text search: postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-textsearch.html — user330315
– user330315, Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 7:02

saladinxu · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-12 01:34:19Z

1

Try this:

SELECT * FROM <table> WHERE <colume> ~* '\ychair\y'

Where \y denotes the beginning/end of words

edited Mar 12, 2014 at 1:34

answered Mar 11, 2014 at 7:22

saladinxu

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3 Comments

Shakeel Over a year ago

I didn't get that to work, but SELECT * FROM <table> WHERE <column> ~* 'chair' worked for me, including rows containing something like "chairleg". I don't understand the purpose of [[:<:]] and [[:>:]]

saladinxu Over a year ago

Edited. @Shakeel Could you try \y?

Shakeel Over a year ago

Yeah that didn't work either. But I think it works fine as I noted in my previous comment. Thanks though!

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