MYSQL fulltext search order by relevance

Question

I am trying to get my Full text search to order by relevance. here is my code it works if remove the ORDER BY but doesn't sort by relevance. I have tried this and it actually makes it so it doesnt find any results at all... Any ideas?

$query_for_result=mysql_query("
     SELECT * FROM Assets WHERE MATCH 
    (`Badge`,`First Name`,`Last Name`,`Service Tag`,`Asset Tag`)
     AGAINST ('".$query."*' IN BOOLEAN MODE) and
   `deleted` = '0'  ORDER BY relevance DESC");

edit*

<input type="text" name="query" />
<input type="hidden" value="Search" name="submit" />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Search" />

</form>
<h4>Search by: Badge, First or Last Name, Service Tag, Asset Tag, Printer Queue or Printer IP.</h4>
<br>
</center>

<?php


if(isset($_GET['submit'])){


$db_tb_name=Assets;
$db_tb_atr_name=`First Name`;

$query=mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['query']);

$query_for_result=mysql_query("
 SELECT * FROM Assets WHERE MATCH 
(`Badge`,`First Name`,`Last Name`,`Service Tag`,`Asset Tag`)
 AGAINST ('".$query."*' IN BOOLEAN MODE) and
`deleted` = '0'  ORDER BY relevance DESC");

then later on in the code

while($data_fetch=mysql_fetch_array($query_for_result))
{

print '<h3>';   
print "<a href=\"modify.php?id=" . $data_fetch['id'] . "\">" . $data_fetch['First Name']  . ' ' . $data_fetch['Last Name'] . "</a>";
print '<br/><b>Badge:</b> '. $data_fetch['Badge'];
print '<br/> <b>Service Tag:</b> '. $data_fetch['Service Tag'];
print ' <b>Asset Tag:</b> '. $data_fetch['Asset Tag'];
print '<br/> <b>Status:</b> '. $data_fetch['Status'];
print '<br/><b>Employee Status: </b>';
    if( $data_fetch['Employee Status'] == 'Active' ){
print '<font color="#32CD32">' . $data_fetch['Employee Status'] . '</font>';
    }
elseif( $data_fetch['Employee Status'] == 'Terminated' ){
print '<font color="red">' . $data_fetch['Employee Status'] . '</font>';}
print '<br/> <b>Last Modified:</b> '. $data_fetch['Last Modified'];
print "<span> </span>";
print '</h3>';
print '<br/><p>' ; 

}

UPDATE This worked for me I finally got it working by using

$query_for_result=mysql_query("SELECT  *, MATCH 
(`Badge`,`First Name`,`Last     Name`,`Service Tag`,`Asset Tag`) 
AGAINST ('".$query."'IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS Relevance FROM Assets WHERE 1 AND MATCH 
(`Badge`,`First Name`,`Last Name`,`Service Tag`,`Asset Tag`)
AGAINST ('".$query."' IN BOOLEAN MODE) and
 `deleted` = '0' ORDER BY Relevance DESC "); 

Armourer

Answer 1

From MySQL Boolean Full-Text Searches documentation:

They do not automatically sort rows in order of decreasing relevance. You can see this from the preceding query result: The row with the highest relevance is the one that contains “MySQL” twice, but it is listed last, not first.

That explains why it is not sorted by relevance without the ORDER BY. Now to be able to order by relevance, you need to define it:

SELECT *, MATCH (`Badge`,`First Name`,`Last Name`,`Service Tag`,`Asset Tag`) as relevance
WHERE MATCH AGAINST ('".$query."' IN BOOLEAN MODE) and `deleted` = '0'
ORDER BY relevance DESC

Jobye

thanks but for some reason this still results in no rows found – Armourer

@Armourer Can you share the query that returns no result? – Jobye

@Armourer The rest of your code seems fine. Can you echo the query you send to mysql, right before mysql_query? – Jobye

I finally got it working by using $query_for_result=mysql_query("SELECT *, MATCH (Badge,First Name,Last Name,Service Tag,Asset Tag) AGAINST ('".$query."'IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS Relevance FROM Assets WHERE 1 AND MATCH (Badge,First Name,Last Name,Service Tag,Asset Tag) AGAINST ('".$query."' IN BOOLEAN MODE) and deleted` = '0' ORDER BY Relevance DESC ");` thanks for the help – Armourer

never use filter on full text, on full text indexes. – Accompanyist