Search::Xapian - Perl XS frontend to the Xapian C++ search library.
use Search::Xapian;
my $db = Search::Xapian::Database->new( '[DATABASE DIR]' );
my $enq = $db->enquire( '[QUERY TERM]' );
printf "Running query '%s'\n", $enq->get_query()->get_description();
my @matches = $enq->matches(0, 10);
print scalar(@matches) . " results found\n";
foreach my $match ( @matches ) {
my $doc = $match->get_document();
printf "ID %d %d%% [ %s ]\n", $match->get_docid(), $match->get_percent(), $doc->get_data();
}
This module wraps most methods of most Xapian classes. The missing classes and methods should be added in the future. It also provides a simplified, more 'perlish' interface to some common operations, as demonstrated above.
There are some gaps in the POD documentation for wrapped classes, but you can read the Xapian C++ API documentation at http://xapian.org/docs/apidoc/html/annotated.html for details of these. Alternatively, take a look at the code in the examples and tests.
If you want to use Search::Xapian and the threads module together, make sure you're using Search::Xapian >= 1.0.4.0 and Perl >= 5.8.7. As of 1.0.4.0, Search::Xapian uses CLONE_SKIP to make sure that the perl wrapper objects aren't copied to new threads - without this the underlying C++ objects can get destroyed more than once.
If you encounter problems, or have any comments, suggestions, patches, etc please email the Xapian-discuss mailing list (details of which can be found at http://xapian.org/lists).
None by default.
Open a database, fail if database doesn't exist.
Create a new database, fail if database exists.
Open an existing database, without destroying data, or create a new database if one doesn't already exist.
Overwrite database if it exists.
Match if both subqueries are satisfied.
Match if either subquery is satisfied.
Match if left but not right subquery is satisfied.
Match if left or right, but not both queries are satisfied.
Match if left is satisfied, but use weights from both.
Like OP_AND, but only weight using the left query.
Match if the words are near each other. The window should be specified, as a parameter to Search::Xapian::Query::Query, but it defaults to the number of terms in the list.
Match as a phrase (All words in order).
Select an elite set from the subqueries, and perform a query with these combined as an OR query.
Filter by a range test on a document value.
Support AND, OR, etc and bracketted subexpressions.
Support + and -.
Support quoted phrases.
Support AND, OR, etc even if they aren't in ALLCAPS.
Support right truncation (e.g. Xap*).
Allow queries such as 'NOT apples'.
These require the use of a list of all documents in the database which is potentially expensive, so this feature isn't enabled by default.
Enable partial matching.
Partial matching causes the parser to treat the query as a "partially entered" search. This will automatically treat the final word as a wildcarded match, unless it is followed by whitespace, to produce more stable results from interactive searches.
Stem all terms.
Don't stem any terms.
Stem some terms, in a manner compatible with Omega (capitalised words and those in phrases aren't stemmed).
docids sort in ascending order (default)
docids sort in descending order
docids sort in whatever order is most efficient for the backend
Standard is db + ops + qpflags + qpstem
Error handling for all methods liable to generate them.
Add POD documentation for all classes, where possible just adapted from Xapian docs.
The following Xapian classes are not yet wrapped: Error (and subclasses), ErrorHandler, ExpandDecider (and subclasses), user-defined weight classes.
We don't yet wrap Xapian::Query::MatchAll, Xapian::Query::MatchNothing, or Xapian::BAD_VALUENO.
The following methods are not yet wrapped: Enquire::get_eset(...) with more than two arguments, Query ctor optional "parameter" parameter, Remote::open(...), static Stem::get_available_languages().
We wrap MSet::swap() and MSet::operator[](), but not ESet::swap(), ESet::operator[](). Is swap actually useful? Should we instead tie MSet and ESet to allow them to just be used as lists?
Thanks to Tye McQueen <tye@metronet.com> for explaining the finer points of how best to write XS frontends to C++ libraries, James Aylett <james@tartarus.org> for clarifying the less obvious aspects of the Xapian API, Tim Brody for patches wrapping ::QueryParser and ::Stopper and especially Olly Betts <olly@survex.com> for contributing advice, bugfixes, and wrapper code for the more obscure classes.
Alex Bowley <kilinrax@cpan.org>
Please report any bugs/suggestions to <xapian-discuss@lists.xapian.org> or use the Xapian bug tracker http://xapian.org/bugs. Please do NOT use the CPAN bug tracker or mail any of the authors individually.
Search::Xapian::BM25Weight, Search::Xapian::BoolWeight, Search::Xapian::Database, Search::Xapian::Document, Search::Xapian::Enquire, Search::Xapian::MultiValueSorter, Search::Xapian::PositionIterator, Search::Xapian::PostingIterator, Search::Xapian::QueryParser, Search::Xapian::Stem, Search::Xapian::TermGenerator, Search::Xapian::TermIterator, Search::Xapian::TradWeight, Search::Xapian::ValueIterator, Search::Xapian::Weight, Search::Xapian::WritableDatabase, and http://xapian.org/.
