Installed module but can't see any results

Installation
------------

1. Copy the porterstemmer.module to the Drupal modules/ directory.

2. Go to 'administer > modules', and enable the porterstemmer.module

3. Go to 'administer > settings > search' and click 'Re-index site'.

The above is quoted from the INSTALL.txt included with the module.

There are no settings for this module thus no settings page. Step#3 requires you to go to the administer -> search settings and reindex your site. Then run cron.php.

You may not notice much difference in results immediately.

It reduces each word in the index to its basic root or stem (e.g. 'blogging' to
'blog') so that variations on a word ('blogs', 'blogger', 'blogging', 'blog') are
considered equivalent when searching. This generally results in more relevant
results.

The above is what you would be looking for with regards to how searches will be handled by this module.

Thanks for the guidance, VeryMisunderstood. Updating status to match the fact that more info is needed whether or not that explains what you need, adam_b.

Okay, the initial problem is because I read the README.txt file but not the INSTALL.txt file - they're identical except for the three steps at the end.
[A suggestion: would it be possible to add a note to the Search Settings page (/admin/settings/search) when this module is enabled? It's the sort of thing which might be easily forgotten otherwise.]

However, after following the instructions I'm still not seeing any difference:
- module is installed and activated
- site has been 100% re-indexed
but I still get different result sets when I search for:
- benefit vs benefits
- child vs children
- handbook vs handbooks

Please check at http://cpag.adam-browne.com and see if you get the same.
thanks, Adam

I had the same problem as you - merely re-indexing the site was not the answer. I had to truncate the three search tables before re-indexing.

Having done that the module then worked as intended - though I immediately ran into another problem which has been mentioned elsewhere in issues...

If I search on 'customise' then my search results return loadsa references, however very few of the search extracts are relevant and have highlighted terms. porter-stemmer seems to treat every derivation from the stem - 'custom' - equally, so the search results will have been chosen because they contain words like 'customer' and 'customary'. Because your search extract has been generated to match the word 'customise' - and it can't - the returned search results often end up pretty unhelpful.

I think these issues have been sufficiently addressed... if you have other problems than "module produces no results", please:
a) Upgrade to the new 6.x-2.x release, which has an improved stemming algorithm and may fix the issues in #4
b) Check out the improved INSTALL.txt and README.txt (they are no longer the same).
c) If you are still having problems with Porter Stemmer, please file a new issue with a description.

Thanks!

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.