ColdFusion Verity Search Float Problem

Question

I have a database full of products.  One of the fields for each product in the database is a minimum price.  I'm trying to create a search that says something like "find all products with a minimum price between X and Y."  However, when it returns results, it includes numbers that are out of the range.  For instance, if I say between 2 and 3 dollars, it will return the correct results but will include numbers like 25.00 and 245.00, and when I do something like "between 4 and 5 dollars" it returns the correct results with additional numbers like "40.00" and "434.00."  So it seems to me that ColdFusion can't process the floating number correctly...It sees a number like "40.00" and assumes its in the range between 4 and 5.  Here is my code for the indexing:
<cfquery name="v_qryProductInfo" datasource="#application.DSN#">
SELECT DISTINCT    SP.pk_storeProductID,
                P.productName,
                C.categoryName,
                P.prodTimeMin,
                P.prodTimeMax,
                PD.miniDesc,
                PD.keywords,
                CONVERT(float, (dbo.getMinPrice(pk_storeProductID))) AS minPrice
FROM             tblProduct P
INNER JOIN        tblProductDescription PD ON P.pk_productID = PD.fk_productID
INNER JOIN        tblStoreProduct SP ON P.pk_productID = SP.fk_productID
INNER JOIN        tblProductSubCategory PSC ON SP.pk_storeProductID = PSC.fk_productID
INNER JOIN        tblSubCategory SC ON SC.pk_subCategoryID = PSC.fk_subCategoryID
INNER JOIN        tblCategory C ON C.pk_categoryID = SC.fk_categoryID
WHERE            (SP.blnStoreActive = 1)
AND                (SP.fk_storeID = #application.storeID#)
</cfquery>
<cfdump var="#v_qryProductInfo#">
<h1>Indexing data...</h1>
<cfindex
    action="refresh"
    collection="#application.vcCollection#"
    key="pk_storeProductID"
    type="custom"
    title="productName"
    query="v_qryProductInfo"
    body="miniDesc, keywords, pk_storeProductID, minPrice"
    Custom1="minPrice"
    Custom2="prodTimeMin"
    Custom3="prodTimeMax"
    Custom4="categoryName"
>
My cfsearch tag criteria looks like this:
    <cfsearch
        criteria="CF_CUSTOM1 >= #priceRangeMin# <AND> CF_CUSTOM1 <= #priceRangeMax#"
        name="qryFoundProducts"
        collection="#application.vcCollection#">
I've made the Custom1 column for the indexing the "minPrice" which is calculated as a function in my database.  I've even tried making sure the number that is being entered in the Custom1 index is a float by using the CONVERT function in my SQL code.  Any ideas why ColdFusion can't properly relate a float?  It seems like it's trying to compare a string and a float, which isn't working too well.
Any info would be greatly apprecaited.

Answer 1

Well, firstly: don't blame Adobe for Verity... Verity is (well: was) a separate product, and I don't think Verity as a company has even existed during Adobe's tenure at the helm (to mix metaphors awkwardly) of CF.
That said, one perhaps can blame Adobe for any disconnect between Verity and CF's support thereof, if Verity does actually support numeric processing, and CF mungs that somehow.  I'm not saying this is the case, but who knows?
What Adobe perhaps didn't do is ditch or deprecate Verity earlier than it did.  Lucene's been around for ages, and has been solid for ages, so I don't know why they didn't revise their search engine support earlier than they did.  Oh well.
Now: your issue.
First thing, this won't work:
<cfset keyList = #Val(ValueList(qryFoundProducts.key))#>
val() returns the value of a number, whereas valueList() returns... a list.  So it val() works at all, the result will just be the value of the first number in the list.  You also don't need the pound-signs there, but either way, it won't affect your situation.
Second, as CF is loosely typed, it doesn't matter if you pass a numeric string or an actual number to a <cfqueryparam> tag, if you've said the value is supposed to be an integer (CF_SQL_INTEGER), then CF will automatically convert it to an integer if it can.  So provided the values in your query column can be expressed as integers, they will convert with no intervention on your part.
So, in that light, I'm not sure your problem is necessarily what you think it is..?
But you say there's a problem in your WHERE clause, but you don't actually say what the problem actually is.  Are you getting an error?  Or just no records?  The wrong records?
What do you see if you dump the query out?  If you take the values output by valueList() and execute the query with those values in a different DB client (like MS SQL Studio or whatever), do you get the results you expect?
What sort of data is in the Verity collection btw?  Are they documents, or DB data, or a mix, or what? If there are PKs coming out of the collection, it sounds like the data came from a DB in the first place.  Can you not use full-text searching in your DB, and leave Verity out of the equation?
Adam