[tonofsteel]

I have been trying to search many things, but the minimum length of a word to search for I find is ridiculous, especially for a programming forum. Key Codes cannot be searched because of this. API Functions, For Loops, and many more cannot be searched. Sure you can get functions, but you get too many results and most of them are not even related to API. How do you search anything API for that matter.

There is probably a reason for this so someone inform me about this

[Volte]

Every word that you ever enter into a forum post is indexed in the database for searching, which, obviously, can get extremely large. However, since there are so many common short words, indexing words such as "the" and "as" would cause the size of the database to increase significantly. It would also force a reindex of the database (using up bandwidth) and probably slow the forum down significantly as well.

[John]

Originally posted by tonofsteel
...How do you search anything API for that matter...

What is wrong with searching by API name: ShellExecute, or constant name: WM_CREATE?

[pjv]

You might be searching to find that stuff out?

Pete

[tonofsteel]

Yea just what pjv said, searching for an API function that does......
Anyways what VolteFace said makes sense so I guess gotta live with whats there.

[Volte]

If you want to search for something like 'OCX' you can search for 'OCX*' -- it will search for all words beginning with OCX, but there aren't many of those. This might not work for somethings, obviously, like 'COM*' since there are many words that start with COM.

[Nerseus]

You're searching for APIs, FOR Loops and more... but nothing specific? It sounds like you might want a website that shows tutorials and guides for beginners? The forums are more for problems or issues that people need help with (with the exception of the Tutors Corner and the Code Library forums).

Check out the various FAQs at the top of the forums.

-Ner

[tonofsteel]

Some times I forget something particular about something. Such as the step function of a for loop, and instead of hunting through 50 sites with 200 tutorials for the one line of comment that i need, so instead i just search old stuff here to see if some newbie like me asked the question before.

Its not a big deal really I was only curious as to why

[Nerseus]

Well for syntax, you can check the MSDN library. For APIs, I use google (but you must know the exact API name).

As a rule of thumb, it's a good idea to keep a little code repository for yourself. It could be a bunch of txt files, a bunch of small projects (what I generally do), or a custom tool that stores code snippets and lets you organize them and search them. It will be invaluable as you learn more and more coding tips. I guestimate that once you have about 50 tips packed away in your head you start losing one for about every 10 new ones you pick up.

-Nerseus

[tonofsteel]

Thats a very good tip. I was wondering if professional programmers that program for a living just remember everything or if they do have to keep referring back to code examples and text books. But I will keep what you said in mind, thanks.