[docs] [issue37862] Search doesn't find built-in functions

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> added the comment:

Even if click 'Library Reference', click '2. Built-in...', click name in the index at the top of the page to go to the entry I know I want to read is sometimes slower that 'click search box', enter word, hit Return, wait for results, scan results to find that entry, I prefer a consistent and dependable result.

That said, perhaps the search algorithm should start with looking words up in the builtins list, the module index, the glossary, and the index, and display those first  Index pages with definitions should get heavy weight too.  But is seems from your example that the obvious places might be downweighted instead.

As for my answer, I believe that the search once used Google, which was and still is terrible at returning results from the current doc.  For instance, just now, the 2nd return for 'Python zip' is the zip entry in chapter 2 ... for 3.3.7!  'Python zip 3.7' does return
https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html
as first entry. I would rather click click to get to the same place.

If Julien and Ammar can improve Search [      ] to beat that, and be consistently useful to beginners, more power to them.

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue37862>
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