new

    $sph = Sphinx::Search->new;
    $sph = Sphinx::Search->new(\%options);

Create a new Sphinx::Search instance.

OPTIONS

log

Specify an optional logger instance. This can be any class that provides error, warn, info, and debug methods (e.g. see Log::Log4perl). Logging is disabled if no logger instance is provided.

debug

Debug flag. If set (and a logger instance is specified), debugging messages will be generated.

GetLastError

    $error = $sph->GetLastError;

Get last error message (string)

GetLastWarning

    $warning = $sph->GetLastWarning;

Get last warning message (string)

IsConnectError

SetEncoders

    $sph->SetEncoders(\&encode_function, \&decode_function)

COMPATIBILITY NOTE: SetEncoders() was introduced in version 0.17. Prior to that, all strings were considered to be sequences of bytes which may have led to issues with multi-byte characters. If you were previously encoding/decoding strings external to Sphinx::Search, you will need to disable encoding/decoding by setting Sphinx::Search to use raw values as explained below (or modify your code and let Sphinx::Search do the recoding).

Set the string encoder/decoder functions for transferring strings between perl and Sphinx. The encoder should take the perl internal representation and convert to the bytestream that searchd expects, and the decoder should take the bytestream returned by searchd and convert to perl format.

The searchd format will depend on the 'charset_type' index setting in the Sphinx configuration file.

The coders default to encode_utf8 and decode_utf8 respectively, which are compatible with the 'utf8' charset_type.

If either the encoder or decoder functions are left undefined in the call to SetEncoders, they return to their default values.

If you wish to send raw values (no encoding/decoding), supply a function that simply returns its argument, e.g.

    $sph->SetEncoders( sub { shift }, sub { shift });

Returns $sph.

SetServer

    $sph->SetServer($host, $port);
    $sph->SetServer($path, $port);

In the first form, sets the host (string) and port (integer) details for the searchd server using a network (INET) socket (default is localhost:9312).

In the second form, where $path is a local filesystem path (optionally prefixed by 'unix://'), sets the client to access the searchd server via a local (UNIX domain) socket at the specified path.

Returns $sph.

SetConnectTimeout

    $sph->SetConnectTimeout($timeout)

Set server connection timeout (in seconds).

Returns $sph.

SetConnectRetries

    $sph->SetConnectRetries($retries)

Set server connection retries (in case of connection fail).

Returns $sph.

SetLimits

    $sph->SetLimits($offset, $limit);
    $sph->SetLimits($offset, $limit, $max);

Set match offset/limits, and optionally the max number of matches to return.

Returns $sph.

SetMaxQueryTime

    $sph->SetMaxQueryTime($millisec);

Set maximum query time, in milliseconds, per index.

The value may not be negative; 0 means "do not limit".

Returns $sph.

SetMatchMode

    $sph->SetMatchMode($mode);

Set match mode, which may be one of:

• SPH_MATCH_ALL

  Match all words

• SPH_MATCH_ANY

  Match any words

• SPH_MATCH_PHRASE

  Exact phrase match

• SPH_MATCH_BOOLEAN

  Boolean match, using AND (&), OR (|), NOT (!,-) and parenthetic grouping.

• SPH_MATCH_EXTENDED

  Extended match, which includes the Boolean syntax plus field, phrase and proximity operators.

Returns $sph.

SetRankingMode

    $sph->SetRankingMode(SPH_RANK_BM25, $rank_exp);

Set ranking mode, which may be one of:

• SPH_RANK_PROXIMITY_BM25

  Default mode, phrase proximity major factor and BM25 minor one

• SPH_RANK_BM25

  Statistical mode, BM25 ranking only (faster but worse quality)

• SPH_RANK_NONE

  No ranking, all matches get a weight of 1

• SPH_RANK_WORDCOUNT

  Simple word-count weighting, rank is a weighted sum of per-field keyword occurence counts

• SPH_RANK_MATCHANY

  Returns rank as it was computed in SPH_MATCH_ANY mode earlier, and is internally used to emulate SPH_MATCH_ANY queries.

• SPH_RANK_FIELDMASK

  Returns a 32-bit mask with N-th bit corresponding to N-th fulltext field, numbering from 0. The bit will only be set when the respective field has any keyword occurences satisfiying the query.

• SPH_RANK_SPH04

  SPH_RANK_SPH04 is generally based on the default SPH_RANK_PROXIMITY_BM25 ranker, but additionally boosts the matches when they occur in the very beginning or the very end of a text field.

• SPH_RANK_EXPR

  Allows the ranking formula to be specified at run time. It exposes a number of internal text factors and lets you define how the final weight should be computed from those factors. $rank_exp should be set to the ranking expression string, e.g. to emulate SPH_RANK_PROXIMITY_BM25, use "sum(lcs*user_weight)*1000+bm25".

Returns $sph.

SetSortMode

    $sph->SetSortMode(SPH_SORT_RELEVANCE);
    $sph->SetSortMode($mode, $sortby);

Set sort mode, which may be any of:

SPH_SORT_RELEVANCE - sort by relevance

SPH_SORT_ATTR_DESC, SPH_SORT_ATTR_ASC

Sort by attribute descending/ascending. $sortby specifies the sorting attribute.

SPH_SORT_TIME_SEGMENTS

Sort by time segments (last hour/day/week/month) in descending order, and then by relevance in descending order. $sortby specifies the time attribute.

SPH_SORT_EXTENDED

Sort by SQL-like syntax. $sortby is the sorting specification.

SPH_SORT_EXPR

Returns $sph.

SetWeights

    $sph->SetWeights([ 1, 2, 3, 4]);

This method is deprecated. Use SetFieldWeights instead.

Set per-field (integer) weights. The ordering of the weights correspond to the ordering of fields as indexed.

Returns $sph.

SetFieldWeights

    $sph->SetFieldWeights(\%weights);

Set per-field (integer) weights by field name. The weights hash provides field name to weight mappings.

Takes precedence over SetWeights.

Unknown names will be silently ignored. Missing fields will be given a weight of 1.

Returns $sph.

SetIndexWeights

    $sph->SetIndexWeights(\%weights);

Set per-index (integer) weights. The weights hash is a mapping of index name to integer weight.

Returns $sph.

SetIDRange

    $sph->SetIDRange($min, $max);

Set IDs range only match those records where document ID is between $min and $max (including $min and $max)

Returns $sph.

SetFilter

    $sph->SetFilter($attr, \@values);
    $sph->SetFilter($attr, \@values, $exclude);

Sets the results to be filtered on the given attribute. Only results which have attributes matching the given values will be returned. (Attribute values must be integers).

This may be called multiple times with different attributes to select on multiple attributes.

If 'exclude' is set, excludes results that match the filter.

Returns $sph.

SetFilterString

    $sph->SetFilterString($attr, $value)
    $sph->SetFilterString($attr, $value, $exclude)

Adds new string value filter. Only those documents where $attr column value matches the string value from $value will be matched (or rejected, if $exclude is true).

SetFilterRange

    $sph->SetFilterRange($attr, $min, $max);
    $sph->SetFilterRange($attr, $min, $max, $exclude);

Sets the results to be filtered on a range of values for the given attribute. Only those records where $attr column value is between $min and $max (including $min and $max) will be returned.

If 'exclude' is set, excludes results that fall within the given range.

Returns $sph.

SetFilterFloatRange

    $sph->SetFilterFloatRange($attr, $min, $max, $exclude);

Same as SetFilterRange, but allows floating point values.

Returns $sph.

SetGeoAnchor

    $sph->SetGeoAnchor($attrlat, $attrlong, $lat, $long);

Setup anchor point for using geosphere distance calculations in filters and sorting. Distance will be computed with respect to this point

$attrlat is the name of latitude attribute

$attrlong is the name of longitude attribute

$lat is anchor point latitude, in radians

$long is anchor point longitude, in radians

Returns $sph.

SetGroupBy

    $sph->SetGroupBy($attr, $func);
    $sph->SetGroupBy($attr, $func, $groupsort);

Sets attribute and function of results grouping.

In grouping mode, all matches are assigned to different groups based on grouping function value. Each group keeps track of the total match count, and the best match (in this group) according to current sorting function. The final result set contains one best match per group, with grouping function value and matches count attached.

$attr is any valid attribute. Use ResetGroupBy to disable grouping.

$func is one of:

• SPH_GROUPBY_DAY

  Group by day (assumes timestamp type attribute of form YYYYMMDD)

• SPH_GROUPBY_WEEK

  Group by week (assumes timestamp type attribute of form YYYYNNN)

• SPH_GROUPBY_MONTH

  Group by month (assumes timestamp type attribute of form YYYYMM)

• SPH_GROUPBY_YEAR

  Group by year (assumes timestamp type attribute of form YYYY)

• SPH_GROUPBY_ATTR

  Group by attribute value

• SPH_GROUPBY_ATTRPAIR

  Group by two attributes, being the given attribute and the attribute that immediately follows it in the sequence of indexed attributes. The specified attribute may therefore not be the last of the indexed attributes.

Groups in the set of results can be sorted by any SQL-like sorting clause, including both document attributes and the following special internal Sphinx attributes:

@id - document ID;

@weight, @rank, @relevance - match weight;

@group - group by function value;

@count - number of matches in group.

The default mode is to sort by groupby value in descending order, ie. by "@group desc".

In the results set, "total_found" contains the total amount of matching groups over the whole index.

WARNING: grouping is done in fixed memory and thus its results are only approximate; so there might be more groups reported in total_found than actually present. @count might also be underestimated.

For example, if sorting by relevance and grouping by a "published" attribute with SPH_GROUPBY_DAY function, then the result set will contain only the most relevant match for each day when there were any matches published, with day number and per-day match count attached, and sorted by day number in descending order (ie. recent days first).

SetGroupDistinct

    $sph->SetGroupDistinct($attr);

Set count-distinct attribute for group-by queries

SetRetries

    $sph->SetRetries($count, $delay);

Set distributed retries count and delay

SetOverride

 ** DEPRECATED **

    $sph->SetOverride($attrname, $attrtype, $values);

 Set attribute values override. There can be only one override per attribute.
 $values must be a hash that maps document IDs to attribute values

SetSelect

    $sph->SetSelect($select)

Set select list (attributes or expressions). SQL-like syntax.

SetQueryFlag

    $sph->SetQueryFlag($flag_name, $flag_value);

SetOuterSelect

  $sph->SetOuterSelect($orderby, $offset, $limit)

ResetFilters

    $sph->ResetFilters;

Clear all filters.

ResetGroupBy

    $sph->ResetGroupBy;

Clear all group-by settings (for multi-queries)

ResetOverrides

ResetQueryFlag

ResetOuterSelect

Query

    $results = $sph->Query($query, $index);

Connect to searchd server and run given search query.

query is query string

index is index name to query, default is "*" which means to query all indexes. Use a space or comma separated list to search multiple indexes.

Returns undef on failure

Returns hash which has the following keys on success:

matches

Array containing hashes with found documents ( "doc", "weight", "group", "stamp" )

total

Total amount of matches retrieved (upto SPH_MAX_MATCHES, see sphinx.h)

total_found

Total amount of matching documents in index

time

Search time

words

Hash which maps query terms (stemmed!) to ( "docs", "hits" ) hash

Returns the results array on success, undef on error.

AddQuery

   $sph->AddQuery($query, $index);

Add a query to a batch request.

Batch queries enable searchd to perform internal optimizations, if possible; and reduce network connection overheads in all cases.

For instance, running exactly the same query with different groupby settings will enable searched to perform expensive full-text search and ranking operation only once, but compute multiple groupby results from its output.

Parameters are exactly the same as in Query() call.

Returns corresponding index to the results array returned by RunQueries() call.

RunQueries

    $sph->RunQueries

Run batch of queries, as added by AddQuery.

Returns undef on network IO failure.

Returns an array of result sets on success.

Each result set in the returned array is a hash which contains the same keys as the hash returned by Query, plus:

• error

  Errors, if any, for this query.

• warning

  Any warnings associated with the query.

SphinxQL

  my $results = $sph->SphinxQL($sphinxql_query);

This is an alternative implementation of the SphinxQL API to the DBI option. Frankly, it was an experiment, and the DBI driver proved to have much better performance. Whilst this may be useful to some, in general if you are considering using this method then you should probably look at connecting directly via DBI instead.

Results are return in a hash containing an array of 'columns' and 'rows' and possibly a warning count. If a server-side error occurs, the hash contains the 'error' field. If a communication error occurs, the return value will be undefined. In either error case, GetLastError will return the error.

BuildExcerpts

    $excerpts = $sph->BuildExcerpts($docs, $index, $words, $opts)

Generate document excerpts for the specified documents.

docs

An array reference of strings which represent the document contents

index

A string specifiying the index whose settings will be used for stemming, lexing and case folding

words

A string which contains the words to highlight

opts

A hash which contains additional optional highlighting parameters:

Returns undef on failure.

Returns an array ref of string excerpts on success.

BuildKeywords

    $results = $sph->BuildKeywords($query, $index, $hits)

Generate keyword list for a given query Returns undef on failure, Returns an array of hashes, where each hash describes a word in the query with the following keys:

• tokenized

  Tokenised term from query

• normalized

  Normalised term from query

• docs

  Number of docs in which word was found (if $hits is true)

• hits

  Number of occurrences of word (if $hits is true)

EscapeString

    $escaped = $sph->EscapeString('abcde!@#$%')

Inserts backslash before all non-word characters in the given string.

UpdateAttributes

    $sph->UpdateAttributes($index, \@attrs, \%values);
    $sph->UpdateAttributes($index, \@attrs, \%values, $mva);
    $sph->UpdateAttributes($index, \@attrs, \%values, $mva, $ignorenonexistent);

Update specified attributes on specified documents

index

Name of the index to be updated

attrs

Array of attribute name strings

values

A hash with key as document id, value as an array of new attribute values

mva

If set, indicates that there is update of MVA attributes

ignorenonexistent

If set, the update will silently ignore any warnings about trying to update a column which is not exists in current index schema.

Returns number of actually updated documents (0 or more) on success

Returns undef on failure

Usage example:

 $sph->UpdateAttributes("test1", [ qw/group_id/ ], { 1 => [ 456] }) );

Open

    $sph->Open()

Opens a persistent connection for subsequent queries.

To reduce the network connection overhead of making Sphinx queries, you can call $sph->Open(), then run any number of queries, and call $sph->Close() when finished.

Returns 1 on success, 0 on failure.

Close

    $sph->Close()

Closes a persistent connection.

Returns 1 on success, 0 on failure.

Status

    $status = $sph->Status()
    $status = $sph->Status($session)

Queries searchd status, and returns a hash of status variable name and value pairs.

Returns undef on failure.

FlushAttributes