Solr: Configuring Indexes (Embedded Solr)

Index Configurations

You can create as many indexes in Solr as you need. To do that, create a new index configuration by selecting Administration view > Index Configurations > New: Index Configuration from the context menu. This will let you create a new system document for a new index.

Note that an index only becomes active in Solr if the index configuration document is published. To delete an index from the Solr instance, simply set the index configuration document offline.

The following lists the properties of the index configuration document:

Index Mappings

When storing documents in the Solr index, their properties must be converted to store them into index fields. This is done by a "mapping." Sophora implements a default mapping for all property types and child nodes. Administrators may configure new fields to be added to index documents

The Solr index may not only contain Solr index documents for sophora nodes, but also for child nodes if those child nodes are configured as rows of dynamic tables. To distinguish between the different index document types, each Solr index document has a solr_document_type_s field which can be set to the following value:

• empty or set to node, in which case it is a normal sophora node
• or
• set to childNode in which case it is the child node of a sophora node

Default Mapping for sophora documents

The following lists the default mappings between data sources and their respective Solr index fields for sophora documents. The solr_document_type_s field will be set to node or, in an upgrade scenario, not be present at all.

Default mapping for dynamic table child nodes

The following lists the default mappings between data sources and their respective Solr index fields for child nodes. The solr_document_type_s field will be set to childNode.

Furthermore, all properties of the child node are mapped in the same way as in the default mapping for sophora documents.

Custom mapping for sophora documents

In the event that Sophora's default mapping is not sufficient, administrators may opt to add customized mappings. These may either add new fields or override default fields.

To add a new custom mapping, create a new index mapping by selecting Administration view > Index Mappings > New: Index Mapping from the context menu. This will let you create a new system document for a new index mapping.

The following lists the properties of the index mapping document:

Default-index mapping

A built-in index named "default" contains data from all documents in the repository. It is, e.g., used for DeskClient searches. A second build-in index is named "default-live". It contains all documents in their latest live version. These build-in indices cannot be configured using regular index configurations. However, admins can add custom index fields to these indices using the "Default-Core-Mapping" index mapping document, which can be found at Administration view > Solr. For instance, custom index fields within the default index can be used for custom search result orders (see Search Result Order Options in the Work Environment Configuration).

Indexing of dynamic tables

If a sophora document includes one or more dynamic tables, each row of the dynamic table will be represented by a separate Solr index document.

Index Fields

To actually create new fields (or override existing ones) in a Solr index document, there needs to be a specification of how data is converted to fill the new field. To create a new index field, select Administration view > Index Fields > New: Index Field from the context menu. This will let you create a new system document for a new index field.

The following lists the properties of the index field document:

Valid return types

• null (the field will not be indexed)
• Classes corresponding to primitive types, e.g. Integer, Double, Boolean
• String
• java.util.Date
• java.util.Calendar
• java.util.UUID
• Collections of the above types (for multivalued fields)

Default imports

• java.io.*
• java.lang.*
• java.math.BigDecimal
• java.math.BigInteger
• java.net.*
• java.util.*
• groovy.lang.*
• groovy.util.*
• com.subshell.sophora.api.*
• com.subshell.sophora.api.content.*
• com.subshell.sophora.api.content.value.*
• com.subshell.sophora.api.nodetype.*
• com.subshell.sophora.api.structure.*

Variables available to scripts

Methods available to scripts

Synchronization of Modified Documents

Whenever a document is modified that should be stored in the index (according to the index configuration), this document is held synchronized with the index. If any changes are made to the document, it will be reindexed automatically to hold the index up to date. If a document is deleted, it will automatically be deleted from the index if "Deleted documents" is not checked in the index configuration.

When using custom index fields, the respective Groovy scripts may call getDocument*() methods on the content manager. Whenever one of the documents returned by these methods changes, the document using the custom index field will be reindexed.

Whenever a structure node is changed, all documents located in that structure node (and its children) will be reindexed automatically.

Whenever an index configuration is published, the complete index will be rebuilt. In this case, rebuilding will take place in a temporary index so that the current index can still be used for searches. Once rebuilding is done, the temporary index becomes the new index, and the old index is deleted. Note, that publishing an index mapping document or an index field document will not trigger a rebuild of the associated indexes.

When changing and publishing a channel, index mapping or index field, the index configurations which have to be republished are marked red in the administration view. Furthermore a sticky note is created. The color of the sticky node is red by default. To change the color you can add an entry with the key sophora.configuration.republishIndexConfigurationColor and for example the value 255,255,0 in the configuration document.

Query a custom index

To search for documents in your own index (Solr core), you have to put it in the search parameters. To achieve this, the class SolrSearchParameters is used. This class allows to configure the Solr query. Use setCore(corename) to specify the index for the search. Check the JavaDoc of that class for more information.

See the following code snippet:

// You can create any query, like NodeTypeQuery or PropertyQuery (except for XPathQuery which cannot query Solr)
// With a SolrQuery you can query your own index fields
IQuery query = new SolrQuery("species_reversed_s: \"goD\"")
// use the special SolrSearchParameters instead of the common SearchParameters
SolrSearchParameters parameters = new SolrSearchParameters()
parameters.setPageSize(10)
// set the index/core to search in
parameters.setCore("Animalcore")
// execute the search
ISophoraClient client = ...
UuidSearchResult searchResult = client.findDocumentUuids(query, parameters)
// do something with the result
List<UUID> uuids = searchResult.getUUIDs()
...