Apache Solr PHP Integration

Jayant Kumar

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781782164920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Open Source Programming
• Index: Computer Science

In Detail

The Search tool is a very powerful for any website. No matter what type of website, the search tool helps visitors find what they are looking for using key words and narrow down the results using facets. Solr is the popular, blazing fast, open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. It is highly scalable, providing distributed search and index replication, and it powers the search and navigation features of many of the world's largest websites.

This book is a practical, hands-on, end-to-end guide that provides you with all the tools required to build a fully-featured search application using Apache Solr and PHP. The book contains practical examples and step-by-step instructions.

Starting off with the basics of installing Apache Solr and integrating it with Php, the book then proceeds to explore the features provided by Solr to improve searches using Php. You will learn how to build and maintain a Solr index using Php, discover the query modes available with Solr, and how to use them to tune the Solr queries to retrieve relevant results. You will look at how to build and use facets in your search, how to tune and use fast result highlighting, and how to build a spell check and auto complete feature using Solr. You will finish by learning some of the advanced concepts required to runa large-scale enterprise level search infrastructure.

Approach

This book is full of step-by-step example-oriented tutorials which will show readers how to integrate Solr in PHP applications using the available libraries, and boost the inherent search facilities that Solr offers.

Who this book is for

If you are a developer who knows PHP and is interested in integrating search into your applications, this is the book for you. No advanced knowledge of Solr is required. Very basic knowledge of system commands and the command-line interface on both Linux and Windows is required. You should also be familiar with the concept of Web servers.

Apache Solr PHP Integration

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Table of Contents

Apache Solr PHP Integration

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Installing and Integrating Solr and PHP

Solr

Installing Solr

Configuring Tomcat to run Solr

Executing a ping query on Solr using PHP

Libraries available for PHP-Solr integration

Installing Solarium

Executing ping queries on Solr using PHP and Solarium library

More about endpoints

Checking Solr query logs

Solarium adapters

Summary

2. Inserting, Updating, and Deleting Documents from Solr

The Solr schema

Adding sample documents to the Solr index

Using PHP to add documents to the Solr index

Updating documents in Solr using PHP

Deleting documents in Solr using PHP

Commit, rollback, and index optimization

Summary

3. Select Query on Solr and Query Modes (DisMax/eDisMax)

Creating a basic select query with sorting and return fields

Running a query using select configuration

Re-using queries

DisMax and eDisMax query modes

Executing queries using DisMax and eDisMax

Date boosting in an eDisMax query

Advanced query parameters

Summary

4. Advanced Queries – Filter Queries and Faceting

Filter queries and their benefits

Executing filter queries

Creating filter query configuration

Faceting

Facet by field

Facet by query

Facet by range

Facet by pivot

Summary

5. Highlighting Results Using PHP and Solr

Solr highlighting configuration

Highlighting in Solr using PHP and Solarium

Using different highlighting tags for different fields

Highlighting using the fast vector highlighter

Summary

6. Debug and Stats Component

Solr relevance ranking

Executing debug through PHP code

Running debug on Solr interface

The stats component

Summary

7. Spell Check in Solr

Solr configuration for spell check

Spell checker implementations available with Solr

Running a spell check query using PHP

Implementing the autocomplete feature using PHP and Solr

Summary

8. Advanced Solr – Grouping, the MoreLikeThis Query, and Distributed Search

Grouping results by fields

Grouping results by queries

Running more like this query using PHP

More like this tuning parameters

Distributed search

Setting up a distributed search

Executing a distributed search using PHP

Setting up Solr master-slave

Load balancing Solr queries using PHP

Summary

Index

Apache Solr PHP Integration

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: November 2013

Production Reference: 1181113

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78216-492-0

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Aniket Sawant (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Jayant Kumar

Reviewers

Renoir Boulanger

Ruben Teijeiro

Acquisition Editor

Luke Presland

Commisioning Editor

Amit Ghodake

Technical Editors

Sharvari H. Baet

Nadeem Bagban

Project Coordinator

Suraj Bist

Proofreader

Ting Baker

Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Production Coordinator

Melwyn D'sa

Cover Work

Melwyn D'sa

About the Author

Jayant Kumar is an experienced software professional and a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science, with more than 12 years' of experience in architecting and developing large-scale web applications.

Jayant is an expert on search technologies and PHP and has been working with Lucene and Solr for more than 10 years now. He has been the key person responsible for introducing Lucene as a search engine in www.naukri.com, the most successful job portal in India.

Jayant has played many different important roles throughout his career, including software developer, team leader, project manager, and architect, but his primary focus has been on building scalable solutions on the web. Currently, he is associated with the digital division of HT Media as the Chief Architect responsible for the job site www.shine.com.

Jayant is an avid blogger and his blog can be visited at http://jayant7k.blogspot.in. His LinkedIn profile is available at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jayantkumar.

I would like to thank the guys at Packt Publishing for giving me the opportunity to write this book. Special thanks to Yogesh, Suraj, and Amit for keeping me engaged and dealing with my drafts and providing feedback at all stages.

I would like to thank my wife Nidhi and my parents for taking care of our kids while I was engaged in writing the book. And finally, I would like to thank my kids, Ashlesha and Banhishikha, for bearing with me while I was writing this book.

About the Reviewers

Renoir Boulanger is an application developer fascinated with web standards. He has been developing websites and web applications in PHP for over 10 years. His experience includes server management and web development for several communications agencies in the province of Quebec. He has created web integration libraries, and participated in the development of various specialized web applications, some of which were for big-name clients such as the W3C, Ericsson, Telefilm Canada, and the Union des Artistes du Québec.

Renoir's involvement in the W3C is as a member of developer relations and system teams, mainly contributing to the WebPlatform Docs (http://webplatform.org/) project to maintain the site stability, improve the site feature...

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• Apache Solr PHP Integration