Chris Cormack said:

Hi All

Especially Joshua. Ive been thinking on starting work on Query.pm our top level search module. And im thinking of using Joshua's SearchMarc.pm module as one (if not its main) backend.

Heres what im thinking Query.pm creates an object. On creating the kohaquery object you pass it a string which describes your search. Pat and Steve were discussing perhaps using a syntax like googles. Eg something like

my $query=Query::new("title: elephants (author: johnson | author: tonnesen)") you then can do things like $num_of_results=$query->count(); my $results=$query->results(-sortby => 'title', -limit=>10, -offset=>'10');

So the Query module does all the hard work, and then all search.pl needs to do is craft the search string.

Hi, Chris - As you probably know, Joshua and Owen and I have been thinking a lot about the searching lately. I've attached the latest document we've been passing among ourselves for comment, just so you can see what we are thinking (at this moment anyway -- our thoughts tend to bounce around a lot.) In general, though, I think a query object is a very, very good idea. Anything we can do to simplify the current searching modules has to be a step in the right direction! -- Stephen Hedges Skemotah Solutions, USA www.skemotah.com -- shedges@skemotah.com

Chris Cormack wrote:

Hi All

Especially Joshua. Ive been thinking on starting work on Query.pm our top level search module. And im thinking of using Joshua's SearchMarc.pm module as one (if not its main) backend.

Joshua is right. i'm the author of CVS SearchMarc.pm we did some tests a feww weeks ago to improve it.

Heres what im thinking Query.pm creates an object. On creating the kohaquery object you pass it a string which describes your search. Pat and Steve were discussing perhaps using a syntax like googles. Eg something like my $query=Query::new("title: elephants (author: johnson | author: tonnesen)") you then can do things like $num_of_results=$query->count(); my $results=$query->results(-sortby => 'title', -limit=>10, -offset=>'10');

So the Query module does all the hard work, and then all search.pl needs to do is craft the search string. So making new searches, or searching new combinations of data should be easy.

Now joshua has written a module SearchMarc.pm which searches the marc tables to return data, so I was thinking of using Query.pm to parse the searchstring and construct the appropriate variables to call catalogsearch in SearchMarc Good, Bad, stupid idea?

Good. I'm working at the moment on SearchMarc.pm itself. My roadmap was the following : 1 modify it to use faster indexes. We already did some tests with Nelsonville. 2 modify it to add "seealso" feature. With see also, you can define in MARC parameters other fields that can be searches when the 1st is asked. For example : author (200$a => also search 701$a, 702$a, 703$a) It's what Joshua speaks about when he says : "For instance, rather than using Koha's title table to retrieve title information for display on the results screen I would like to grab: 245a, b, h, 246a, 295c" Those 2 are done & commited a few minuts ago. 3 modify search to add "order by feature". the order must be choosen in a biblio or biblioitem field. 4 add "store query in my session" (through cookie) => to be able to modify the last cookie. 5 add next & previous feature in MARCdetail.pl 6 add "store up to 5 previous queries". 7 modify opac to use marc search & drop "quick search in Librarian interface) The 1st 3 steps are fully compatible with Chris ideas. They are on a lower level. So I propose to work on SearchMarc itself, and Chris or someone else on higher level (including point 4-6 of this mail) I leave Marseille for Belgium tommorow afternoon. I'll be back on wednesday. I won't work on those features until then to avoid working on something that someone else works too) Instead, i think i'll work on some code cleaning in circulation or members module. END NOTE : shouldn't we organize a irc meeting to officially "elect" 2.0 release maintainer & 2.2 release manager ? afaik, we have slef as 2.0RM & me as 2.2RM ? (the 2.0RM could be nominated when official 2.0.0 is released (i still take care of 2.0.0, as promised). That's a question of days : i'm just waiting for polish & chinese translation & some feedbacks on z3950clients. Seems that this points is better) -- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)