I have previously mentioned a problem using decimal numbers on
XRANK statements in my Freshness
Boost post. The problem is that the decimal separator used differs on your
locale.
For example in Norwegian the character used is , (comma)
while in English the character used is . (punctuation). The issue arises when a
query rules is written using one locale, and being used on a query in a
different locale.
Say I have a query rule with the following XRANK statement
where I use . as the decimal separator
{searchterms}
XRANK(cb=0.5) title:test
If a user has their SharePoint locale or browser settings
set to Norwegian, then the query will fail, giving you an error message that search
didn’t understand the query. The reason for the error is that the query
framework will use .Net to parse the number with Double.Parse(), and this function is culture sensitive when
parsing, and the culture used is based on the users locale settings.
The solution, as I have implemented in the Freshness Boost
Generator, is to instead use exponential notation when writing the numbers.
This means 0.5 is written as 5E-1 and
0.25 would be 25E-2. The number
behind the E character is the number of decimal places to move to the left.
This ensures that parsing the number always work, regardless of the locale
used.
Rewriting the above query you end up with
{searchterms}
XRANK(cb=5E-1) title:test
As a conclusion you should always use exponential notation
when writing decimal numbers in an XRANK statement to ensure it will work
across different locale settings.
