# Why can't I search for the word "alone"? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 4, 2003, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523 "2003-01-04T00:11:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![femtosecond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@femtosecond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femtosecond)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/21 "2003-01-07T11:14:06Z")
A broad range of noise words is good, if it keeps the index size down. What’s nasty is that vBulletin’s search function just drops them from your query without notice. :mad: (“ain’t”? Don’t apostrophes get removed anyway and are treated as a word delimiter?) ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/22 "2003-01-14T00:10:31Z")
FYI, with Tuba’s permission, I am posting a link to the default list of ignored words supplied with Vbulletin’s version 2.2.1. I have extracted this from the php code file badwords.php. Of course, there is no guarantee that the SDMB list is the same, but it’s a good starting point. [badwords.txt](http://doorbell.net/junk/badwords.txt) Note that “ain’t” and other contracted words are in this list. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/23 "2003-01-14T00:23:53Z")
Those are bad words? I always thought that “darn” and “shucks” were bad words. Was my mother wrong? ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/24 "2003-01-14T00:55:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Anthracite \* > \*\* My Board I run is available via the “WWW” below my post. \*\* From what I can see, you don’t have a “WWW” button. **Arnold Winkleried** and **White Lightning** do, but not you. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/25 "2003-01-14T02:19:11Z")
wolfstu - the button shows up if you have a homepage listed in your profile. Since it’s dynamic, it doesn’t show up if you remove the homepage listed in your profile. ---
**Author:** ![White\_Lightning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/26 "2003-01-14T03:01:30Z")
Yeah, weird. **Anthracite** used to. I’m sure she had a plenty-good reason for removing it. ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/27 "2003-01-14T03:38:46Z")
> [@](#): > > the button shows up if you have a homepage listed in your profile… I figured as much. But then, why would someone point people toward it, but not actually have it? Did they forget to mention their homepage in their profile? > [@](#): > > …it doesn’t show up if you remove the homepage listed in your profile Oh. um, > [@](#): > > I’m sure she had a plenty-good reason for removing it Must be. Shoulda thought of that. Never mind. Continue ignoring my rantings. :: Rants in a corner :: ---
**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:** [January 14, 2003, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/28 "2003-01-14T11:25:45Z")
So when a search with wildcards is executed, is the board software performing a different type of search routine (maybe a brute-force search instead of an index search)? - certainly the wildcard search finds words that (unless the SDMB ‘badwords’ has been modified) aren’t indexed. Not that I really _need_ to know, but I’m guessing that if it does use a brute force search for wildcards, then the server hit is going to be much more severe, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/29 "2003-01-14T13:17:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wolfstu \* > \*\*From what I can see, you don’t have a “WWW” button. **Arnold Winkleried** and **White Lightning** do, but not you. \*\* It’s there now. I removed it temporarily because, on advice of counsel, I was doing major security and tracking enhancements to my Board this weekend, and wanted to slow traffic down as much as possible so I could work easier (my logs show a lot of SDMB people come in via that link each day). ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/30 "2003-01-14T18:33:26Z")
The “\*” wildcard can only be used at the end of a word, indicating that the index is still being used in wildcard searches. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/31 "2003-01-14T22:11:21Z")
Hmm. I searched for “alon\*” in ATMB for one month and found this thread, highlighting all the occurrences of “alone”. As expected, “aloneness” in Arnold’s post was also highlighted. Also as expected, “alongside” in a different thread was found, too. ---
**Author:** ![femtosecond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@femtosecond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femtosecond)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/32 "2003-01-14T22:47:05Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried_ > **The “\*” wildcard can only be used at the end of a word, indicating that the index is still being used in wildcard searches.** Are you sure about that? :dubious: (\<- couldn’t resist) From our very own search page (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > Advanced query: Join words with AND, OR and NOT to control your search in more detail. > Add asterisks (\*) to use wild cards in your search ( **_bullet_ matches vBulletin etc.** ) Matches to a trailing wildcard can be found simply by reading consecutive entries, in a single sorted index. Searching in it for matches to a _leading_ wildcard isn’t impossible though, but it requires to scan through the whole index because the hits may be scattered all over the place. It’s still a rather efficient index search (i.e. it wouldn’t have to scan the whole post database - just the index), but it already is quite a brute-force method also. IIRC the search index of this board is(was) about 80 MBytes, so I guess it’s better to avoid scanning through that with a leading wildcard when the server is slow. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/33 "2003-01-14T22:48:02Z")
rowrrbazzle - I believe the explanation for what you see is this: when you search for “alon\*” you will find threads containing a word starting with “alon” but _not_ the word “alone” since “alone” is in the “bad words” list. However, when the thread is called up, the “highligh=alon\*” part of the link will highlight every word starting with “alon” _including_ the word “alone”. ---
**Author:** ![femtosecond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@femtosecond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femtosecond)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/34 "2003-01-15T10:36:33Z")
**wolfstu** go away, that’s my corner. 😉 [continued rant]What’s really nasty is that they’re carried over to the highlight parameter as if nothing happened, pretending that they’re the reason for the search hit.[/continued rant] Ah, Dubious got its second colon (like it better too). If a kind mod has the heart to fix mine up there? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523/35 "2003-01-15T16:42:50Z")
So fixed, fem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-search-for-the-word-alone/146523.md?page=1)