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HelpBug: search function has trouble with accented letters.
A few days ago, I encountered what appears to be a bug in the 'Letters' section of the search function. Interestingly, the bug is limited to only the Submitted Names Database - everything works as it should in the main database!
I wanted to run a search for all German given names that contain the letter ä. To do so, I simply put *ä* in the 'Pattern' field. It turns out that in the Submitted Names Database, this only yields German names that start with Ä - it leaves out names where the letter is located elsewhere, such as Bartimäus, Mardochäus and Thaddäus.
This does not happen in the main database: all German names with the letter show up in the search results, regardless of the letter's location in the name.
It just occurred to me to test if the same thing happens with a different letter and usage, namely é for French given names. And yes, it does indeed: searching with *é* will only show names that start with É in the Submitted Names Database. Names like Albéric, Célien and Valérien are omitted.
All in all, it looks like something in the search function of the Submitted Names Database can't quite handle accented letters, leading to incomplete search results.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
I wanted to run a search for all German given names that contain the letter ä. To do so, I simply put *ä* in the 'Pattern' field. It turns out that in the Submitted Names Database, this only yields German names that start with Ä - it leaves out names where the letter is located elsewhere, such as Bartimäus, Mardochäus and Thaddäus.
This does not happen in the main database: all German names with the letter show up in the search results, regardless of the letter's location in the name.
It just occurred to me to test if the same thing happens with a different letter and usage, namely é for French given names. And yes, it does indeed: searching with *é* will only show names that start with É in the Submitted Names Database. Names like Albéric, Célien and Valérien are omitted.
All in all, it looks like something in the search function of the Submitted Names Database can't quite handle accented letters, leading to incomplete search results.
Replies
You're correct, this was not working very well. It should be better now. Thanks for letting me know!
No problem, and thank you in turn for ironing out the bug so quickly! :)