SQL Search (Trip Search)

As of version 4.6, SQL Search (a new iteration of Trip Search) is an alternative search module that offers advanced search operands (phrases in quotes, excluded terms); searching by taxonomy term, user and date; filtering within results; and an advanced search page. SQL Search does not use Drupal search indexing. Instead, it offers three alternative search methods: simple SQL LIKE matching, matching with regular expressions, and MySQL full text index searching.

Note: Despite the excellent work by Steven Wittens to include elements of SQL Search in core search, some Drupallers still want to retain some of the original SQL Search features. Drupal 4.7, a new maintainer has taken over responsibility for SQL Search (see this news post). This means that bugs will no longer be fixed in versions prior to 4.7, however.

SQL Search offers advanced "Google-like" search operators:

• phrases (enclose search string in double quotes)
• exclude terms (preceed term with minus sign)
• OR operator

These operators can be entered directly or can be entered into an "advanced search" page.

Additional features:

• filter results by category and by content type
• paging of results
• ranking of results by multiple parameters (number of matches, location of matches (title vs. body), number of hits, 'sticky' flag, etc.)
• logs search actions to watchdog
• search block
• admin settings including tweaking of search ranking