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Question

Hi,


I tried searching for a keyword in the Documentation. There was no results found. But when I Tried Typing it in the Index Tab I could clearly see it... Is this a known Bug?


BTW, Im using VC++ Express Beta 2
Note: no filters are active during the search...






cheers,


Paul June A. Domag

Answer 1

Hi Paul,

It could be that the term is on the search stop list, which means it won't produce any search results.  What term were you searching for?

Thanks,
Molly

Answer 2

Hi,



How could I know if its in the search stop list? I can't remember exactly what I was searching. But Just tried searching for RaftingContainer keyword. It returned 2 results in which none of it was helpful... But when I try using the index, It was there...





cheers,


Paul June A. Domag

Answer 3

I've been waiting for someone more knowledgeable than me to reply. But this has been sitting here a while so I’ll give it a go. The stop list MSDN uses may not be available and probably changes from time to time. Stop lists contain words that could be a performance hit during a search. So on the Sax On the Web forum site the word ‘saxophone’ or ‘sax’ can’t be used because it would generate an unusably large list of hits.

I’m guessing words like ‘Microsoft’, ‘Windows’, or ‘code’ would be disallowed on a search in the MSDN forums. Once you know this, you should be able to pretty reliably deduce most of the words on the stop list for any forum you frequent.

I know the doc team I'm on creates keywords for every reference by the name of the reference. So if you know the name of the method you are looking for, you should be able to find it using Search or the Index. I prefer the index myself.

Answer 4

Hi Paul,

MSDN and MSDN Express Libraries do indeed use a stoplist to weed out common words from search results. This wouldn't explain the bad results from the term 'RaftingContainer' as it would have been treated as one word, and it's not on the stoplist.

Since I am not sure what previous term you were searching for I can't say for certain if the inappropriate results were due to the stoplist or not.

I am curious to know if you remember if you had Online or Offline Help set as your preference?  The search results may vary slightly depending on which setting you had chosen.

The stoplist we use has actually changed very little over the years.

We have maintained the same stoplist since the first release of Visual Studio.NET up to the Beta 2 release of Visual Studio 2005.
For the release of Visual Studio 2005 however, we have modified the stoplist slightly, removing some terms that are found primarily within code examples such as : and, do, each, finally for , etc...
This will help improve search results within code.
 
Below you will find the full contents of both verisions of the stoplists.

Darren Parker
Microsoft
Developer Division User Education

-------------------------------

VS.NET through Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 version
--------------------------------
a
about
after
against
all
along
also
although
am
among
an
and
are
as
at
be
became
because
been
being
between
but
by
can
caution
come
could
details
did
do
does
doing
done
during
each
early
far
finally
for
found
from
had
has
have
he
her
here
his
how
however
I
if
in
include
including
information
into
is
it
its
late
later
made
many
may
me
med
might
more
most
near
no
non
none
nor
not
note
of
off
on
only
or
other
over
saw
see
seen
several
she
since
so
some
such
than
that
the
their
them
then
there
these
they
this
those
through
tip
to
too
under
until
up
us
use
very
warning
was
we
were
when
where
which
while
who
with
you


Visual Studio 2005 RTM version 
--------------------------------
a
about
after
against
all
along
also
although
am
among
an
are
as
at
be
became
because
been
being
between
but
by
can
caution
come
could
details
did
does
doing
done
during
early
far
found
from
had
has
have
he
her
here
his
how
however
I
if
in
including
information
into
is
it
its
late
later
made
many
may
med
might
more
most
near
no
non
none
nor
not
note
of
off
on
only
other
over
saw
see
seen
several
she
since
so
some
such
than
that
the
their
them
then
there
these
they
those
through
tip
to
too
under
up
us
use
very
was
we
were
when
where
which
who
you