MySQL MATCH-AGAINST plural words?

Question

I'd like to add a search to my site. I have a database of challenges from a video game. Each challenge has a title and description, I'd like to be able to search at least the description, but both if possible. Now, I've set the table up so that I can use MATCH() AGAINST(), but I'm having a problem with words that can be either singular or plural.

For example, the word "assists" appears in multiple challenges, but if the user types "assist", he won't get anything. Is there any way that I can add that functionalty? I've tried everything I can think of, but nothing has worked so far.

Update: I only just recently learned about MATCH AGAINST, so I'm not sure the "right" way to use it in my case. Like I said, I've got a table with a column called description, using the example word from above, assists, which appears multiple times in the table, I would use this query:

SELECT * FROM challenges WHERE MATCH(description) AGAINST('assists')

I just executed that and it returned 10 rows. If I change it to assist, I get nothing.

Answer 1

Maybe you can use the SOUNDEX() function from MySQL.

SELECT
  id,
  title
FROM products AS p
WHERE p.title SOUNDS LIKE 'Shaw'

// This wil match 'Saw' etc.

I think this also may be applicable for you and that he will take with plurals

Answer 2

I might be missing the point of what you're trying to do, but why not just do a LIKE match like this:

SELECT * FROM challenges WHERE description LIKE "%assist%";

That will match anything that contains "assist" as well as "assists". Of course it will also match "assistant" and "assistance", which may not be what you want...