Author surnames should be search key'd as ^SURNAME$ by default.
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#51 Author surnames should be search key'd as ^SURNAME$ by default.
It is good that the author Search Key defaults to "Surname; Forename Surname" and with extra options if there are middle names. But on a couple of occasions I have entered Persons whose surnames have been a short, common string of characters, which then get tracked by longer words in my work record entries.
Example: I have a person record with default search key "Shea; Nicholas Shea". One of my work records contains the word "disheartening" (I was particularly unhappy with the arguments being made in that work!). Hypernomicon links disheartening to Nick Shea's record.
Desired behaviour: the pure surname search key should be bookended with ^ and $. As far as I can tell, this wouldn't break existing references to that person via their surname. It would just prevent false positives of the above kind.
I think I thought about doing this a LONG time ago (can barely remember), and I think the reason I didn't do it then is so that, for example, adjective forms like "Kantian", "Platonic", "Kafkaesque" will link back to the person. Maybe it should include the ^ but not the $ by default. That would fix your case but there would be other false positives. Of course, sometimes I have to manually remove the pure surname component because it's too common (like Smith) or it's a common English word (Thomas More), so there will always be some times when manual editing is needed. On the other hand, there are also people whose last name is the beginning of a lot of words (like Mill), but that is more rare. Does ^ and not $ sound good? Or do you still think both should default in?
Again a user-defined formula seems like the ultimate solution.
In the meantime, I think the times I personally use those kinds of adjectives are few and far between, and I wouldn't mind losing the link in those cases. I agree there's probably no way to avoid some manual editing 100% of the time. At the very least, ^ alone would be helpful.
Starting with the next release after 1.25, it will append a ^ to the front of the last name when creating a new person search key.
Last edit: Jason Winning 2023-04-02