Web App like Google

[Robert Kern]

godwin wrote:
> Hello there,
>       I need some thoughts about a web application that i am dreaming
> and drooling about in python. I want a search page to look exactly like
> Google. But when i press the search button, it should search a database
> in an rdbms like Oracle and provide results.
>              For example, if my keywords are "all customers with names
> starting with 'God'" it should somehow search table CUSTOMER , with
> following query :
> 	SELECT CUSTNAME FROM CUSTOMER WHERE CUSTNAME LIKE 'God%'

This is a Natural Language Processing (NLP) task. In general, it's 
pretty hard. For Python, there is the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK):

   http://nltk.sourceforge.net/

You could get pretty far, though, by accepting a specific subset, the 
so-called "controlled natural language" approach. For example:

   http://www.jfsowa.com/clce/specs.htm
   http://www.ics.mq.edu.au/~rolfs/controlled-natural-languages/
   http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/attempto/

-- 
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
  Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
   -- Richard Harter