[Koha-devel] planning for search rewrite, need feedback

[paul POULAIN]

Pat Eyler a écrit :

>Yesterday and again this morning, discussions on the #koha irc channel
>turned to searching and a decision was made to develop a "google-like
>query syntax" (GQS) for searches.
>
Some feedback, based on MARC Search in 2.0.0 intranet.

>  In general, we want to develop a
>much better search back-end that:
>    - can  optimize queries
>
The MARC search builds queries that are always indexed. Not depending on 
the complexity of the query. So, we always get a very fast answer :-)

>    - 'lowers the bar' for developers who want to work on localized
>      improvements for searches
>    - easily spans the range from very simple to very complex queries
>
The API of the search is quite extensible : you passes some arrays, that 
contains the search.
It is really easy to add in the marc search features like :
title <op> <value>
author <op> <value>
before (or after) the actual
<choose field> <op> <value>
<choose field> <op> <value>
That is, I agree, not fast enough for 90% of the requests.

In fact, in Esiee, a student already worked on a "wrapper" for non-marc 
searches, that transforms a non marc (& strange) search info a MARC (& 
always indexed one). He did not commit because we hadn't 2 branches at 
this moment. I put him in cc of this mail to ask him to commit this nice 
wrapper to CVS (HEAD branch)

-- 
Paul POULAIN
Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres
responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)