Bug #12725 fulltext search treats '+' as OR
Submitted: 22 Aug 2005 15:23 Modified: 18 Jan 2006 0:26
Reporter: Peter Brawley (Basic Quality Contributor) Email Updates:
Status: Closed Impact on me:
None 
Category:MySQL Server: Documentation Severity:S3 (Non-critical)
Version:5.0.11 OS:Any (any)
Assigned to: Bugs System CPU Architecture:Any

[22 Aug 2005 15:23] Peter Brawley
Description:
Unlike most search engines, MySQL search lists default to 'OR'. Example: 'dog cat' = 'dog OR cat'. AltaVista, Fast Search, Google, Hotbot, Lycos, Northern Light and Yahoo default to AND, which users who are not programmers expect.  

Suggested new feature: 
  MySLQ system variable ft_boolean_default= OR | AND
  default 'OR' so as not to break existing code, settable to AND

How to repeat:
As above
[10 Sep 2005 19:35] Sergei Golubchik
It's already supported.
There's ft_boolean_syntax variable, that specifies '+' for AND and ' ' for OR.
You want to swap it:

  SET GLOBAL ft_boolean_syntax=' +-><()~*:""&|';

It's not documented, we'll fix it.
[13 Sep 2005 22:38] Mike Hillyer
The Documenting status is not for documentation bugs but for bugs that need a changelog entry. Assigning to Documentation team and changing status to Verified.
[18 Jan 2006 0:26] Mike Hillyer
ft_boolean_syntax is documented at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-system-variables.html

and pointed to at 

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-fine-tuning.html

Which seems to be the appropriate place, closing.