How to match on a longer word using MySQL Full Text Search?

Question

I have 2 tables : Company and category (category table has tags field, I wrote keywords for each category, I used comma(,) as delimiter)

When I search something, it will first search in the company table and then search the query in the tags field.

I wrote the query but I have a problem. When I search "emlak", everything is fine but if I search "emlakçı" it can't find anything. Do I have to enter "emlakçı" as a keyword in tags field or is it possible to solve this with an another way?

Here is my query :

SELECT
    SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS company.*,
    MATCH(company.c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT') as nameScore,
    MATCH(category.tags) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT') as tagScore
FROM company LEFT JOIN category ON company.c_cat_id = category.c_id
WHERE MATCH(company.c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT')
OR MATCH(category.tags) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT')
ORDER BY nameScore DESC

Answer 1

Here is your original query

SELECT
    SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS company.*,
    MATCH(company.c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT') as nameScore,
    MATCH(category.tags) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT') as tagScore
FROM company LEFT JOIN category ON company.c_cat_id = category.c_id
WHERE MATCH(company.c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT')
OR MATCH(category.tags) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT')
ORDER BY nameScore DESC

You may want to try running the fulltext searching before doing the LEFT JOIN

SELECT
    SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS company.*,
    company.nameScore,category.tagScore
FROM
    (SELECT *,WHERE MATCH(c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE) nameScore
    FROM company WHERE MATCH(c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE)) company
    LEFT JOIN
    (SELECT *,MATCH(tags) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE) as tagScore
    FROM category WHERE MATCH(tags) AGAINST ('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE)) category
    ON company.c_cat_id = category.c_id
ORDER BY nameScore DESC;

As for the search string emlakçı, try using a wildcard character. In other words,

MATCH(tags) AGAINST ('emlak*' IN BOOLEAN MODE)

This may pick up more occurrences but should get emlak and similar strings

UPDATE 2012-07-30 18:01 EDT

I don't know your table structure. Assuming name is a field in category, try this:

SELECT
    company.name,category.name,COUNT(1) CategoryCount
FROM
    (SELECT *,WHERE MATCH(c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE) nameScore
    FROM company WHERE MATCH(c_title) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE)) company
    LEFT JOIN
    (SELECT *,MATCH(tags) AGAINST('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE) as tagScore
    FROM category WHERE MATCH(tags) AGAINST ('SEARCH TEXT' IN BOOLEAN MODE)) category
    ON company.c_cat_id = category.c_id
GROUP BY company.name,category.name;