NYCPHP Meetup

[Phillip Powell]

My image cataloging application project is now being tasked to come up 
with a simple/advanced search engine, fully custom (no 3rd party).  The 
criteria to search for will include up to 15 different fields, all 
conjoined by the boolean "AND", "OR" and "AND NOT" in between them all.

Based on this incredibly simple criteria, how would any of you approach 
this, seriously?  What would you think would be the necessary steps I 
should take to approach, logically.  Client has enormous cash flow and 
is willing spend wantonly, however, it is made clear to me the client 
will NOT accept any 3rd party source of any kind within the application, 
every single thing must be built by me, by hand.  Call it the DIY 
application approach if you must, but that's it.

Everything else is custom-built by me and I am about 40% completed on 
the search engine, however, I am running into serious methodology 
problems because of the complexity of the means by which a search can be 
done, consider the enormity of combinations of boolean conjoinings that 
can take place.

If any of you ever approached anything similar to this, hopefully under 
the same conditions as I, how have you approached it?

Thanx
Phil