# space bar/search anomaly.......FYI **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [December 7, 2002, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-bar-search-anomaly-fyi/141162 "2002-12-07T19:11:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2002, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-bar-search-anomaly-fyi/141162/1 "2002-12-07T19:11:29Z")
I’ve finally discovered a little quirk in the search function that I was totally unaware of. Every now and then because the curser is right on the left edge of the “search by user name” box, I’ll move it over a notch so I can clearly see it. Totally unneccessary I know. However I’ve now established that if you do that, the search program will not recognize the user name and you get the “invalid” message. Heretofore I had thought it was just a program gliche as a result of hampsters. If you’ve had the same problem as me, now you know. ---
**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2002, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-bar-search-anomaly-fyi/141162/2 "2002-12-08T04:46:06Z")
Er… why would that work? The space is a valid character in SDMB usernames, so the search engine can’t just ignore them. Doing a ‘match partial name’ search on " beer" will find the poster **Gin and Beer It!** , whereas searching for just “beer”, without the preceding space, will find **UncleBeer**. The same is true of others; " blue" is to **Mr. Blue Sky** and **Wicked Blue** as “blue” is to **bluethree** and **Blueapple** (and **Mr. Blue Sky** and **Wicked Blue** , of course). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2002, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-bar-search-anomaly-fyi/141162/3 "2002-12-08T05:42:46Z")
**Wickit** , I always use the “match exact name” option. Try a vanity search with that option, and tap the space bar once before typing in your user name. ---
**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2002, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-bar-search-anomaly-fyi/141162/4 "2002-12-08T07:01:38Z")
Yes, it shows nothing, which was my point: as far as the search is concerned, the space character is just as valid as, say, the letter P. One should not expect it to ignore the space in a search any more than the letter P. Pwikkit ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-bar-search-anomaly-fyi/141162/5 "2002-12-09T11:35:52Z")
That’s not a quirk. You’ve just told it to search for the poster " grienspace". Of course it isn’t going to find you. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-bar-search-anomaly-fyi/141162/6 "2002-12-09T14:42:29Z")
If you’re doing a vanity search (which I assume in this context means a search to see if anyone has mentioned you, rather than a review of your own postings), you’d put your username into the ‘Search By Keyword’ field, wouldn’t you? - Although in this case searching for my user name with a preceding space doesn’t appear to make any difference - it finds instances of “Hey,[space]Mangetout, you are a complete and total…” and quoted blocks headed with “Originally Spouted By[space]Mangetout”, along with posts that begin “Mangetout: you’re just a…” (which don’t appear to have a preceding space in the post).