Search problem with English words next to Asian characters

Shiyou · 2020-01-25T11:35:55.653Z

Version:
Joplin 1.0.178
macOS Catalina 10.15.2

Recently I have met some trouble searching English words which is next to (behind or after) a Chinese character. Consider the following items:

字at字
字at
at字

in which 字 is an example of Chinese character (or Japanese kanji) and the problem I’m going to state remains the same for Japanese kana or some Chinese & Japanese punctuation like 。 which takes two spaces. Maybe also apply to Korean but I am not sure.

Now I’d like to search for the word at. The problem is: If I search for at I get nothing for the examples above.

My way of compromising is to search for at*, which however may return something like 字meat, which is obviously not what I want.

According to Chinese and Japanese writing habits, I think this problem is worth attention. I’ve seen in another supporting topic that the new version may improve search function. Just putting it here as a reminder.

Thank you!

tessus · 2020-01-25T21:24:11.597Z

Your above 3 examples are considered one word each. According to the search info, you can’t search for substrings within a word. e.g. *at* won’t work nor will *at.
The only search term that will work is at* and at字 will be returned.

Shiyou · 2020-01-26T06:32:26.606Z

Thanks for the reply. That's definitely right.

However, what I originally mean is sometimes I need to search for one English word within Chinese or Japanese but it cannot work. I understand that the English word would be a substring within a word. However I find when I search for a Chinese word within a pure Chinese sentence (also looks like a substring within a "word"), it works. Let me be specific.

Now the fact is that, for pure Chinese sentences, like

谢谢你的回复。

in which a word might be composed by one, two or several characters, and there is no space between two words, which means in English grammar we should make it

谢谢 你 的 回复。
(thanks for) (you) ('s) (reply.)

but we don't. When I search within it (I mean the first sentence 谢谢你的回复。) for one, two or several characters like 你, 回复 or sth else, the search results turn out to be right! In this case I guess 你 is also a substring within a string (word), but the search does work.

屏幕截图 2020-01-26 14.24.231328×356 29.7 KB

Secondly, when we want to use one English word within the Chinese sentence, we usually just put it in the sentence using the rule I've mentioned above, which means, no space between word and word, like

我喜欢Joplin这个软件。

What confuse me is that in this case when I search for Joplin it does not work. I understand in English environment the case is that I should search for Joplin within the sentence

I like the software called Joplin.

in which Joplin. is a word rather than a substring, and according to some rules we can throw away the dot and find Joplin.

It seems to me that there are two sets of rules for different languages and I wonder if there is any measure to search for Joplin within

我喜欢Joplin这个软件。

I hope I've made myself understood .

PS. For the example I mentioned last time, the fact is at* returns all items.

屏幕截图 2020-01-26 14.19.45(2)1478×464 31.3 KB

tessus · 2020-01-27T01:10:40.449Z

I understand what you are saying. Thanks for the explanation.

Unfortunately I don’t have an answer, because I don’t know why that is. Maybe @laurent has more insight.

bearzyj · 2021-02-09T12:41:09.623Z

Looks the issue remains in Joplin 1.7.11

Filed a new bug: [Joplin 1.7.11] search engine doesn't work accurate · Issue #4482 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub