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findyourpilot/.agents/skills/supabase-postgres-best-practices/references/advanced-full-text-search.md
2026-03-02 21:16:26 +01:00

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Use tsvector for Full-Text Search MEDIUM 100x faster than LIKE, with ranking support full-text-search, tsvector, gin, search

LIKE with wildcards can't use indexes. Full-text search with tsvector is orders of magnitude faster.

Incorrect (LIKE pattern matching):

-- Cannot use index, scans all rows
select * from articles where content like '%postgresql%';

-- Case-insensitive makes it worse
select * from articles where lower(content) like '%postgresql%';

Correct (full-text search with tsvector):

-- Add tsvector column and index
alter table articles add column search_vector tsvector
  generated always as (to_tsvector('english', coalesce(title,'') || ' ' || coalesce(content,''))) stored;

create index articles_search_idx on articles using gin (search_vector);

-- Fast full-text search
select * from articles
where search_vector @@ to_tsquery('english', 'postgresql & performance');

-- With ranking
select *, ts_rank(search_vector, query) as rank
from articles, to_tsquery('english', 'postgresql') query
where search_vector @@ query
order by rank desc;

Search multiple terms:

-- AND: both terms required
to_tsquery('postgresql & performance')

-- OR: either term
to_tsquery('postgresql | mysql')

-- Prefix matching
to_tsquery('post:*')

Reference: Full Text Search