Plucene Search Engine Add-On
TWiki original search engine is a simple yet powerful tool. However, it can not search within attached documents. That has been discused in many topics in the Codev web:
Time ago I found
Plucene, which is a Perl port of the java library
Lucene. So this plugin/addon intends to be a topic/attachment search engine, with Plucene as its backend.
I would like to thank
TWiki:Main.SopanShewale for his many suggestions and contributions.
Note that this plugin has a release for each TWiki major version, namely Cairo and Dakar.
Usage
Indexing with plucindex
The
plucindex
script indexes all the public webs, and it uses some TWiki::Func code to retrieve the list of available webs and to retrieve their topic list. For each topic, the meta data is inspected and indexed, as the text body. Also, if the topic has attachments, those are indexed (see below for more details).
By now, you should run this script manually after installation to create the index files used by
plucsearch
. If you want, you can also schedule a weekly or monthly crontab job to create the index files again, or maybe execute it manually when you take down your server for maintenance tasks. To prevent browser access, it has been placed out of the public bin folder.
Please, to suggest indexing improvements read/post to
TWiki:Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnDev
Updating with plucupdate
The
plucupdate
script uses the web's
.changes
files to know about topic modifications, in a way such old
mailnotify
worked. Also, a
.plucupdate
file is used on each web directory storing the last timestamp the script was run on it. So when this script is executed, first checks if there are any topic updates since last execution. The most recent topic updates are removed from the index and then reindexed again (the same goes for attachments).
This script should be executed by an hourly crontab. As before, this script has been placed out of the public bin folder.
Please, to suggest indexing improvements read/post to
TWiki:Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnDev
Attachment file types to be indexed
All the PDF, HTML and text attachments are also indexed by default. If you want to override this setting you can use a TWiki preference
PLUCENEINDEXEXTENSIONS
. You can copy & paste the next lines in your
TWiki06x01.TWikiPreferences topic
* Plucene settings
* Set PLUCENEINDEXEXTENSIONS = .pdf, .html, .txt, .doc
or whatever extensions you want. Remember that you may need additional
CPAN:Plucene::SearchEngine::Index libraries and install required third party tools such as
antiword or
xlhtml.
You can find/post additional
CPAN:Plucene::SearchEngine::Index libraries for many file types at
TWiki:Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnDev. Thanks again to
TWiki:Main/SopanShewale for his contributions.
Searching with plucsearch
The
plucsearch
script uses a template
plucsearch.tmpl
(that can be adapted to your site skin easily) or the
plucsearch.pattern.tmpl
(if you use the pattern skin). There is also a
PluceneSearch topic with a form ready to use with the
plucsearch script.
The query syntax has been improved
- you can use
+
for and
and -
for and not
- you can limit to the topic body or attachment body, using the prefix
text:
or just type the search string
- if you want to search using some meta data, you should use the prefix
field:
where field is the meta data name (like author
)
- if you want to search using some form field, you should use the prefix
field:
where field is the form's field name
- plucene adds the type field for the indexed attachments, so you can use it to filter your results (like
type:pdf
)
- attachments also have a special field, attachment:yes, which is used in the PluceneSearch topic to search again only displaying attachments
Query examples (just type it in your
PluceneSearch
site topic)
- text:plucene searches for plucene in topic/attachment text
- plucene as above
- author:JoanMVigo searches for topics/attachments authored by this author
- TopicClassification:ItemToDo searches for topics with a form field named TopicClassification with value ItemToDo
- +perl -type:pdf +attachment:yes searches for attachments only with perl as text, excluding PDF files
Please, to suggest searching improvements read/post to
TWiki:Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnDev
Other features
This new version provides some extra functionality:
- skip unuseful webs from the index (with a new preference PLUCENEINDEXSKIPWEBS)
- all other webs are indexed, however if a web has
Set NOSEARCHALL = on
in its WebPreferences, then no topic from that web is shown when displaying results
- skip annoying or unindexable attachments from the index (with a new preference PLUCENEINDEXSKIPATTACHMENTS)
- index variables for web (with a new preference PLUCENEINDEXVARIABLES). For example, if set to CONTACTINFO, a search for
CONTACTINFO:JohnSmith
will provide the WebHome topics of the webs which have Set CONTACTINFO=JohnSmith
in its WebPreferences.
- displaying the search results, show an option for diaplaying only attachments if PLUCENESEARCHATTACHMENTSONLY enabled. You can set PLUCENESEARCHATTACHMENTSONLYLABEL to a text or an image.
Please, to request further features read/post to
TWiki:Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnDev
Search form
The following form submits text to the
plucsearch
script. The installation instructions are detailed below.
Add-On Installation Instructions
Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this add-on. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the add-on on the server where TWiki is running.
- You can install Plucene and its dependencies running:
- perl -MCPAN -e "install Plucene"
- perl -MCPAN -e "install Plucene::SearchEngine"
- Install third party text extracting tools, like
xpdf
which provides pdftotext
. OPTIONAL You may wish to install additional CPAN:Plucene::SearchEngine::Index libraries so that this add on can index such file types. More information at TWiki:Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnDev#ExtraBackendParsers
- Download the ZIP file from the Add-on Home (see below)
- Unzip
SearchEnginePluceneAddOn.zip
in your twiki installation directory. Content: File: | Description: |
bin/plucsearch | script that searches the index files |
data/TWiki/PluceneSearch.txt | Plucene search topic |
data/TWiki/PluceneSearch.txt,v | Plucene search topic repository |
data/TWiki/SearchEnginePluceneAddOn.txt | Add-on topic |
data/TWiki/SearchEnginePluceneAddOn.txt,v | Add-on topic repository |
templates/plucsearch.pattern.tmpl | template used by new search script for the pattern skin |
plucene/bin/LocalLib.cfg | this file should is required and should be modified according to the twiki/lib absolute path of your installation |
plucene/bin/plucindex | script that indexes all topics and PDF/HTML/TXT attachments |
plucene/bin/plucupdate | script that uses web's .changes files to update the index |
plucene/index/ | directory for index files to be stored |
plucene/logs/ | the index and update logs will be written here - admin should monitor this folder |
* Plucene settings
* Set PLUCENEINDEXEXTENSIONS = .pdf, .htm, .html, .txt, .doc
* Set PLUCENEINDEXPATH = /srv/www/twiki/plucene/index _or whatever path your index folder is located_
* Set PLUCENEATTACHMENTSPATH = /srv/www/twiki/pub _or whatever path your pub folder is located_
* Set PLUCENESEARCHATTACHMENTSONLY = 1
* Set PLUCENESEARCHATTACHMENTSONLYLABEL = Display only attachments
* Set PLUCENEINDEXVARIABLES = CONTACTINFO, JUSTANOTHERONE
* Set PLUCENEINDEXSKIPWEBS = Trash, Sandbox
* Set PLUCENEINDEXSKIPATTACHMENTS = Web.SomeTopic.AnAttachment.txt, Web.OtherTopic.OtherAttachment.pdf
* Set PLUCENEDEBUG = 1
- Remember to edit the file
LocalLib.cfg
and modify twikiLibPath
accordingly to your configuration
- Test if the installation was successful:
- change the working directory to the
plucene/bin
twiki installation directory
- run ./plucindex
- once finished, open a browser window and point it to the
TWiki/PluceneSearch
topic
- just type a query and check the results
- Just create a new hourly crontab entry for the
plucene/bin/plucupdate
script.
Add-On Info
- Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Search within attached documents, such as doc, html, txt, pdf, ppt, xls
Add-on Author: |
TWiki:Main/SopanShewale, TWiki:Main/JoanMVigo |
Add-on Version: |
27 Jun 2006 (v2.200 for Dakar, v1.500 for Cairo) |
Change History: |
|
27 Jun 2006: |
TWikiDakar (v2.200) - Searching issue solved when using template authentication, update index bug solved |
27 Jun 2006: |
TWikiCairo (v1.500) - Update index bug solved |
21 Mar 2006: |
TWikiDakar (v2.100) & TWikiCairo (v1.400) - Update index issue solved |
03 Mar 2006: |
TWikiDakar (v2.000) & TWikiCairo (v1.300) |
15 Dec 2004: |
Use of TWiki preferences for indexing path & attachment extensions (v1.210) |
26 Nov 2004: |
TWikiCairo release compatible version (v1.200) |
23 Nov 2004: |
Incremental version (v1.100) |
18 Nov 2004: |
Initial version (v1.000) |
CPAN Dependencies: |
CPAN:Bit::Vector::Minimal, CPAN:IO::Scalar, CPAN:Lingua::GL::Stemmer, CPAN:Lingua::PT::Stemmer, CPAN:Lingua::Stem::Fr, CPAN:Lingua::Stem::It, CPAN:Lingua::Stem::Ru, CPAN:Lingua::Stem::Snowball::Da, CPAN:Lingua::Stem::Snowball::No, CPAN:Lingua::Stem::Snowball::Se, CPAN:Text::German, CPAN:Lingua::Stem::En, CPAN:Tie::Array::Sorted, CPAN:Time::Piece, CPAN:Plucene 1.19, CPAN:Plucene-SearchEngine-1.1 |
Other Dependencies: |
xpdf (pdftotext) and other CPAN packages required by above dependencies |
Perl Version: |
Tested with 5.8.0 |
License: |
GPL |
Add-on Home: |
http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOn |
Feedback: |
http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnDev |
Appraisal: |
http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/SearchEnginePluceneAddOnAppraisal |
--
TWiki:Main/JoanMVigo - 27 Jun 2006