# How can I link to a forum search?



## Nanon

Hi All,

The title is self-explanatory - if I search for a term in the forum(s) (not the dictionaries), can I post a link to the search results?
I tried that recently, but the link returns no results when posted.
Sorry if this question has been asked before.


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## Paulfromitaly

Technically you can, but that link will expire very soon, so it'd be virtually useless after a few minutes.
Just an example: 

http://forum.wordreference.com/search.php?searchid=5873101


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## Nanon

Hi Paul,

A few minutes, indeed! The link you send already expired. I did not realise how ephemeral these links could be.
Thanks anyway - I will continue doing what I usually do i.e. suggesting other forer@s to perform a search...


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## Flaminius

Hi,

When you suggest searching, mentioning detailed criteria wouldn't hurt.  By the way links to tags are permanent, so you can call up a tagged thread by a permanent link.  This would be like a link to search results, but, alas, we don't have enough taggers for it to really work....


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## Paulfromitaly

Nanon said:


> Hi Paul,
> 
> A few minutes, indeed! The link you send already expired. I did not realise how ephemeral these links could be.
> Thanks anyway - I will continue doing what I usually do i.e. suggesting other forer@s to perform a search...



This might be useful
*
Searching the Forum*


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## jann

Actually, Paul's search link is valid for ~30 minutes after he creates it... but it is not transferable.  He can refresh that link himself for 30 min, but he can't share it with anyone else, not even right away.

If you want to link to a search, you must create a URL that will _launch the search_... because you cannot share a URL that points to search _results_.  You'll notice that there are two pre-made search links in every user's profile:  one to "find all posts by user" and the other to "find all threads started by user."  If you are technically inclined, you can examine the syntax of those links, the fields on the search form, etc., and alter/customize them... but there is a much easier way. 

Launch the search you want.  On the results page, you will see  the words... 





> *Search*:   Keyword(s): *your search term(s)*


...at the left side of the blue bar at the top.  Hover your mouse over that word "Search" and you will see that it is clickable link with a long and complicated URL that contains all of your search parameters.  If you click it, you will be taken back to the search form with these parameters filled in. You could share that URL with someone.  Then the person would just have to click "search" at the bottom of the search form to launch the search himself. 

Or if you are very ambitious, you can manually alter that long and complicated URL to add the part that launches the search:  find the portion near the beginning of the URL that has _...search.php?query=_... and insert _do=process&_ directly after the question mark.  If you share the altered version of the URL, the person who clicks on it will automatically launch the search and be taken directly to the results.


To reiterate one last time:  links ending in _searchid=[number]_ cannot be shared between users.  The person you try to give the link to will get a message that says "sorry, no results"... even if you yourself are (still) able to click the link and see search results.


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## swift

Jann, tu m'épates !! Merci.


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## jann

My pleasure.


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## swift

Oh ! Mais je viens de découvrir un tout petit problème : si le terme de la recherche contient un mot accentué, _passé _par exemple, les résultats de la recherche ne contiennent pas la voyele accentuée.  Faut-il remplacer le "é" par un '%e' ou quelque chose d'autre ? (C'est juste un exemple, j'ai oublié les aspects techniques de la syntaxe des urls. )

Passé composé devient "pass compos".


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## swift

Never mind, I just found out: all you have to do is put "passe compose" with no accents. The problem is, the terms of your search won't be highligthed.


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## jann

The search and dictionary are not accent-sensitive: regardless of how you enter your search words, results should include both accented and unaccented versions of those search terms.

There seems to be some small encoding issue with the way the accents you type are understood by the search engine.  I don't have this problem: e.g., passé composé 

I will let Mike know about the encoding issue... and in the meantime, you can avoid the problem by using an unaccented letters in your search.  The search will find both accented and unaccented versions of the search terms, so the results will be the same as those obtained if everything were working properly.


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## jann

swift said:


> Never mind, I just found out: all you have to do is put "passe compose" with no accents. The problem is, the terms of your search won't be highligthed.


If you really want them to be highlighted (actually, I don't like the highlighting, but that's another question entirely ), you can manually alter the link for a given thread:

Here's a thread result for a passe compose search (this thread, actually, since it's the most recent one where those search terms appear):

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1928235&highlight=passe+compose

Just replace those unaccented e's after _highlight=_ at the end of the URL with accented ones (by typing directly in the URL bar):

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1928235&highlight=passé+composé


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## mkellogg

swift said:


> Passé composé


This is an encoding issue.  If you edit the URL directly in the address and add accented characters, it gets sent to the server in the wrong encoding.

I'm not sure what I can do about the encoding issue, but I'll see if I can find a better way that we can link to searches.


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## swift

Thanks Mike.


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