Subject: bug#57160: 28.1.91; Info Virtual Index fails on search "two column"

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2022 18:24:29 +0000

> Everyday search engines would accept "two column" and add in the hyphen.

(Not chiming in on whether something should be done in Info.)

Just pointing out that the "everyday search engines" you're thinking of (e.g. PDF searching, web search engines...) typically perform what's called "full-text search" or "indexed search".

They _index_ a set of documents, breaking down words into roots, endings, etc.  So they can match singular/plural and other forms of words that have the same root, and perform other kinds of search (boolean predicates, nearness tests, etc.).

They don't do the kind of searching that Emacs does, in general.  Emacs searching is typically plain-text, and it allows for the use of regexps, for example.

These are two very different search worlds.  Try searching for "two-column" with Google search and not getting hits also for "two column".  Each kind of search has its advantages.  Emacs searching is good for most uses of Emacs.