Thunderstone Support Forums

When searching our patent database for
"inhaler dispense w/2",

the engine doesn't find

"dispensed for oral inhalation".

The engine requires an asterisk in the search string:
"inhaler dispens* w/2"

Why doesn't the suffix processing routine identify "dispensed" from "dispense"?

What's your minwordlen setting? By default it's 255 effectively disabling suffix processing.

And unless you've "set withinmode='word'" w/2 means within 2 characters.

minwordlen = 5, withinword=word

Also note that the engine finds "inhalation" from "inhaler" indicating suffix processing is on. The fact that it finds the phrase with the asterisk indicates word proximity.

dispense is one of those odd words all forms of which don't strip to the same root using the default suffixes.

dispense doesn't strip down, but dispen[s][ed] does.