title: Solr Numerical Trie vs traditional trie (prefix tree)
body: <p>I'm reading Taming Text by Ingersoll, Morton &amp; Farris and I don't get how solr's implementation of numerical trie would help search for text? I'm a bit confused with the explanation for solr.TrieField fieldType for solr. </p>
  
  <p>What I am confused is: Traditional prefix tree stores alphabet (if it's English), solr's is storing numerical, I don't get how someone is able to search for text in a numerical tree.</p>
  
  <p>Does the tree convert characters into number and then range it? </p>
  
  <p>It's apparently a range field. From what I've gathered, say we type a prefix Tamp, then from there we can stem to different possibility and a range query works with prefix + [range of character in numeric]? </p>
  
  <p>Thank you for you time</p>