Re: simple web search

On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 10:01:22AM -0800, chester c young wrote:
> > I'm considering implementing a search box on my review web site 
> > http://lesculturelles.net and am looking for a simple way to match 
> > entered words against several columns on related tables:
> > show.show_name, story.title, person.firtname, person.lastname, etc.
> 
> one solution would be a view:
> 
> create view search_v as select
>   'show'::name as tab_nm,
>   show_id as tab_pk,
>   'Show Name' as description,
>   show_name as search
>   from show
> union select
>   'story'::name,
>   story_id,
>   'Story Title',
>   title
>   from story
> union ...
> 
> your query would be
>   select * from search_v where '$string' ilike search
> 
> this would return a list the user could use to drill down further.

Thanks, this looks promising. The union and view ideas are indeed 
inspiring. 

What is that ::name cast for?