210 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
210 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
||
|
1. OVERVIEW
|
||
|
|
||
|
This README file describes the syntax of the arguments that may be passed to
|
||
|
the FTS3 MATCH operator used for full-text queries. For example, if table
|
||
|
"t1" is an Fts3 virtual table, the following SQL query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE <col> MATCH <full-text query>
|
||
|
|
||
|
may be used to retrieve all rows that match a specified for full-text query.
|
||
|
The text "<col>" should be replaced by either the name of the fts3 table
|
||
|
(in this case "t1"), or by the name of one of the columns of the fts3
|
||
|
table. <full-text-query> should be replaced by an SQL expression that
|
||
|
computes to a string containing an Fts3 query.
|
||
|
|
||
|
If the left-hand-side of the MATCH operator is set to the name of the
|
||
|
fts3 table, then by default the query may be matched against any column
|
||
|
of the table. If it is set to a column name, then by default the query
|
||
|
may only match the specified column. In both cases this may be overriden
|
||
|
as part of the query text (see sections 2 and 3 below).
|
||
|
|
||
|
As of SQLite version 3.6.8, Fts3 supports two slightly different query
|
||
|
formats; the standard syntax, which is used by default, and the enhanced
|
||
|
query syntax which can be selected by compiling with the pre-processor
|
||
|
symbol SQLITE_ENABLE_FTS3_PARENTHESIS defined.
|
||
|
|
||
|
-DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS3_PARENTHESIS
|
||
|
|
||
|
2. STANDARD QUERY SYNTAX
|
||
|
|
||
|
When using the standard Fts3 query syntax, a query usually consists of a
|
||
|
list of terms (words) separated by white-space characters. To match a
|
||
|
query, a row (or column) of an Fts3 table must contain each of the specified
|
||
|
terms. For example, the following query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'hello world'
|
||
|
|
||
|
matches rows (or columns, if <col> is the name of a column name) that
|
||
|
contain at least one instance of the token "hello", and at least one
|
||
|
instance of the token "world". Tokens may be grouped into phrases using
|
||
|
quotation marks. In this case, a matching row or column must contain each
|
||
|
of the tokens in the phrase in the order specified, with no intervening
|
||
|
tokens. For example, the query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH '"hello world" joe"
|
||
|
|
||
|
matches the first of the following two documents, but not the second or
|
||
|
third:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"'Hello world', said Joe."
|
||
|
"One should always greet the world with a cheery hello, thought Joe."
|
||
|
"How many hello world programs could their be?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
As well as grouping tokens together by phrase, the binary NEAR operator
|
||
|
may be used to search for rows that contain two or more specified tokens
|
||
|
or phrases within a specified proximity of each other. The NEAR operator
|
||
|
must always be specified in upper case. The word "near" in lower or mixed
|
||
|
case is treated as an ordinary token. For example, the following query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'engineering NEAR consultancy'
|
||
|
|
||
|
matches rows that contain both the "engineering" and "consultancy" tokens
|
||
|
in the same column with not more than 10 other words between them. It does
|
||
|
not matter which of the two terms occurs first in the document, only that
|
||
|
they be seperated by only 10 tokens or less. The user may also specify
|
||
|
a different required proximity by adding "/N" immediately after the NEAR
|
||
|
operator, where N is an integer. For example:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'engineering NEAR/5 consultancy'
|
||
|
|
||
|
searches for a row containing an instance of each specified token seperated
|
||
|
by not more than 5 other tokens. More than one NEAR operator can be used
|
||
|
in as sequence. For example this query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'reliable NEAR/2 engineering NEAR/5 consultancy'
|
||
|
|
||
|
searches for a row that contains an instance of the token "reliable"
|
||
|
seperated by not more than two tokens from an instance of "engineering",
|
||
|
which is in turn separated by not more than 5 other tokens from an
|
||
|
instance of the term "consultancy". Phrases enclosed in quotes may
|
||
|
also be used as arguments to the NEAR operator.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Similar to the NEAR operator, one or more tokens or phrases may be
|
||
|
separated by OR operators. In this case, only one of the specified tokens
|
||
|
or phrases must appear in the document. For example, the query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'hello OR world'
|
||
|
|
||
|
matches rows that contain either the term "hello", or the term "world",
|
||
|
or both. Note that unlike in many programming languages, the OR operator
|
||
|
has a higher precedence than the AND operators implied between white-space
|
||
|
separated tokens. The following query matches documents that contain the
|
||
|
term 'sqlite' and at least one of the terms 'fantastic' or 'impressive',
|
||
|
not those that contain both 'sqlite' and 'fantastic' or 'impressive':
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'sqlite fantastic OR impressive'
|
||
|
|
||
|
Any token that is part of an Fts3 query expression, whether or not it is
|
||
|
part of a phrase enclosed in quotes, may have a '*' character appended to
|
||
|
it. In this case, the token matches all terms that begin with the characters
|
||
|
of the token, not just those that exactly match it. For example, the
|
||
|
following query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'sql*'
|
||
|
|
||
|
matches all rows that contain the term "SQLite", as well as those that
|
||
|
contain "SQL".
|
||
|
|
||
|
A token that is not part of a quoted phrase may be preceded by a '-'
|
||
|
character, which indicates that matching rows must not contain the
|
||
|
specified term. For example, the following:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH '"database engine" -sqlite'
|
||
|
|
||
|
matches rows that contain the phrase "database engine" but do not contain
|
||
|
the term "sqlite". If the '-' character occurs inside a quoted phrase,
|
||
|
it is ignored. It is possible to use both the '-' prefix and the '*' postfix
|
||
|
on a single term. At this time, all Fts3 queries must contain at least
|
||
|
one term or phrase that is not preceded by the '-' prefix.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Regardless of whether or not a table name or column name is used on the
|
||
|
left hand side of the MATCH operator, a specific column of the fts3 table
|
||
|
may be associated with each token in a query by preceding a token with
|
||
|
a column name followed by a ':' character. For example, regardless of what
|
||
|
is specified for <col>, the following query requires that column "col1"
|
||
|
of the table contains the term "hello", and that column "col2" of the
|
||
|
table contains the term "world". If the table does not contain columns
|
||
|
named "col1" and "col2", then an error is returned and the query is
|
||
|
not run.
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'col1:hello col2:world'
|
||
|
|
||
|
It is not possible to associate a specific table column with a quoted
|
||
|
phrase or a term preceded by a '-' operator. A '*' character may be
|
||
|
appended to a term associated with a specific column for prefix matching.
|
||
|
|
||
|
3. ENHANCED QUERY SYNTAX
|
||
|
|
||
|
The enhanced query syntax is quite similar to the standard query syntax,
|
||
|
with the following four differences:
|
||
|
|
||
|
1) Parenthesis are supported. When using the enhanced query syntax,
|
||
|
parenthesis may be used to overcome the built-in precedence of the
|
||
|
supplied binary operators. For example, the following query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH '(hello world) OR (simple example)'
|
||
|
|
||
|
matches documents that contain both "hello" and "world", and documents
|
||
|
that contain both "simple" and "example". It is not possible to forumlate
|
||
|
such a query using the standard syntax.
|
||
|
|
||
|
2) Instead of separating tokens and phrases by whitespace, an AND operator
|
||
|
may be explicitly specified. This does not change query processing at
|
||
|
all, but may be used to improve readability. For example, the following
|
||
|
query is handled identically to the one above:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH '(hello AND world) OR (simple AND example)'
|
||
|
|
||
|
As with the OR and NEAR operators, the AND operator must be specified
|
||
|
in upper case. The word "and" specified in lower or mixed case is
|
||
|
handled as a regular token.
|
||
|
|
||
|
3) The '-' token prefix is not supported. Instead, a new binary operator,
|
||
|
NOT, is included. The NOT operator requires that the query specified
|
||
|
as its left-hand operator matches, but that the query specified as the
|
||
|
right-hand operator does not. For example, to query for all rows that
|
||
|
contain the term "example" but not the term "simple", the following
|
||
|
query could be used:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'example NOT simple'
|
||
|
|
||
|
As for all other operators, the NOT operator must be specified in
|
||
|
upper case. Otherwise it will be treated as a regular token.
|
||
|
|
||
|
4) Unlike in the standard syntax, where the OR operator has a higher
|
||
|
precedence than the implicit AND operator, when using the enhanced
|
||
|
syntax implicit and explict AND operators have a higher precedence
|
||
|
than OR operators. Using the enhanced syntax, the following two
|
||
|
queries are equivalent:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'sqlite fantastic OR impressive'
|
||
|
<col> MATCH '(sqlite AND fantastic) OR impressive'
|
||
|
|
||
|
however, when using the standard syntax, the query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'sqlite fantastic OR impressive'
|
||
|
|
||
|
is equivalent to the enhanced syntax query:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'sqlite AND (fantastic OR impressive)'
|
||
|
|
||
|
The precedence of all enhanced syntax operators, in order from highest
|
||
|
to lowest, is:
|
||
|
|
||
|
NEAR (highest precedence, tightest grouping)
|
||
|
NOT
|
||
|
AND
|
||
|
OR (lowest precedence, loosest grouping)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Using the advanced syntax, it is possible to specify expressions enclosed
|
||
|
in parenthesis as operands to the NOT, AND and OR operators. However both
|
||
|
the left and right hand side operands of NEAR operators must be either
|
||
|
tokens or phrases. Attempting the following query will return an error:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'sqlite NEAR (fantastic OR impressive)'
|
||
|
|
||
|
Queries of this form must be re-written as:
|
||
|
|
||
|
<col> MATCH 'sqlite NEAR fantastic OR sqlite NEAR impressive'
|