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We are developing a custom .NET directory listing style application for a client and we require a powerful search solution. The application will be built in ASP .NET C# on SQL Server 08. The application is based around data which users to the organisation can enter in a profile management style area. Fields can be textboxes, textareas, selection boxes, multiselects etc. A user from the main website needs to be able to use the search function to find a result, but this result should search the entire database and not only base the results on one or two fields. It could be anything within any of the fields the user can fill out or select etc.

Can anyone help me find a possible solution for a .NET powered search engine we can use for this application? It must be preferably C#, running on .NET 3.5 and SQL Server 08. The database is a completely custom built schema and so there is no schema example to show or that can be shown.

If you need more information to provide a satisfactory answer let me know and I'll try to provide some more information specific to what you ask.

Thanks, Cian

cian1991ferrari
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3 Answers3

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Checkout Lucene.Net.

Lucene.Net is a source code, class-per-class, API-per-API and algorithmatic port of the Java Lucene search engine to the C# and .NET platform utilizing Microsoft .NET Framework.

Oded
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  • Yeah it seems good, just not sure yet if it will roll. Should it not, which I'm not saying it won't, is there any other main rivals to Lucene which do a good job? – cian1991ferrari Feb 04 '11 at 14:45
  • @cian1991ferrari - I am not familiar with any others that see such widespread usage. – Oded Feb 04 '11 at 14:46
  • It sounds promising then. I am not completely understanding of the terminology as I'm just a student, but in layman's terms, should the Lucene search pick up on our data structures and relationships throughout and provide an in-depth search based on all possible data? – cian1991ferrari Feb 04 '11 at 14:52
  • @cian1991ferrari - If you configure and set it up that way... You should be able to point it to your DB, tell it what to index and go. – Oded Feb 04 '11 at 14:54
  • Cool, it sounds like a good solution, hopefully it will work out for the concept we are producing etc. Thanks for all your help. For all others, other search engine prospects are helpful, even though Lucene seems great. – cian1991ferrari Feb 04 '11 at 14:56
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You might want to check out Lucerne.NET, which is the search solution used by StackOverflow

Community
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Kendrick
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  • Yeah it seems good, just not sure yet if it will roll. Should it not, which I'm not saying it won't, is there any other main rivals to Lucene which do a good job? – cian1991ferrari Feb 04 '11 at 14:45
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In addition to Lucene .NET (which I've used and is very good), you could also consider SQL Server's Full-text search. This is also very powerful and if all the data you need to query is in the database is another good option for you - we used it for a large enterprise management system and it worked well for us.

Matt Roberts
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