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Databases Intermediate

What is Full-Text Search?

A technique for searching natural language text in databases using word stemming, ranking, and relevance scoring.

Full-text search goes beyond simple LIKE queries. It tokenizes text into words, applies stemming (running → run), removes stop words (the, is, at), and ranks results by relevance. PostgreSQL provides built-in tsvector/tsquery types.

Features include phrase search, proximity search, weighted columns, and fuzzy matching. PostgreSQL's GIN indexes accelerate full-text queries. For more advanced needs, dedicated search engines like Elasticsearch or Meilisearch offer additional features.

Related Terms

Soft Delete
A pattern where records are marked as deleted with a flag or timestamp rather than being physically removed from the database.
Transaction
A sequence of database operations that are treated as a single unit — either all succeed or all are rolled back.
CTE (Common Table Expression)
A temporary named result set defined within a SQL statement using the WITH clause, improving query readability and enabling recursion.
Primary Key
A column or set of columns that uniquely identifies each row in a database table.
Partitioning
A technique of dividing large database tables into smaller, more manageable segments while maintaining a single logical table.
Prepared Statement
A pre-compiled SQL template that uses parameters instead of literal values, preventing SQL injection and improving performance.
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