In text retrieval, full text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full text database. Full text search is distinguished from searches based on metadata or on parts of the original texts represented in databases (such as titles, abstracts, selected sections, or bibliographical references).
In a full text search, the search engine examines all of the words in every stored document as it tries to match search criteria (e.g., words supplied by a user). Full text searching techniques became common in online bibliographic databases in the 1990s. Many web sites and application programs (such as word processing software) provide full-text search capabilities. Some web search engines such as AltaVista employ full text search techniques while others index only a portion of the web pages examined by its indexing system.
Read more about Full Text Search: Indexing, The Precision Vs. Recall Tradeoff, False-positive Problem, Performance Improvements, Software
Famous quotes containing the words full, text and/or search:
“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren’t a little flower somebody sewed on.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
“The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world, and the most dangerous.”
—James Clavell (b. 1924)