"all the dots, quotes, semicolumns, etc" are usually taken care of by the quote() method within DBI

You misunderstood me here a bit. Here's an example: if the text of the new item will be something like "I really, really like this node.", then the index will be something like:

"I" -> 1,
"really," -> 1,
"really" -> 1,
"like" -> 1,
"this" -> 1,
"node." -> 1
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I would expect a different result in the finished program, though. :)

Why are you letting users enter HTML? If you're getting it from another source, that's different, though, you may be stuck with it.

Because my users are kind of advanced. :) Sometimes they need plain text, but sometimes they need a few tags to better express themselves. For example, they do tables and links.

After some more thinking (as usualy, after posting), I decided to separate two issues I've raised in the original post. One issue is to get rid of HTML before creating index, and another issue is to get rid of the punctuation (dots, quotes, etc). This is much clearer to me know and I thank you for that. :)

Do the HTML parsing modules break for you when confronted with invalid HTML? Given the crap floating aroud the web, I'd be surprised, especially since all you want to do is get rid of the tags. Have you tested any of the modules?

I haven't tried it yet, but it is about time I do. :)

Leonid Mamtchenkov aka TVSET