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Swish-e – Tool for full-text indexing local files

22 points by fiatjaf 12y ago

walterbell 12y ago
How does Swish compare with Regain/lucene (http://regain.sourceforge.net/ http://regain.sourceforge.net/) and Recoll/xapian (http://recoll.org http://recoll.org)?
- bch 12y ago
  Multi-byte indexing[1] was the biggest issue I recall the last time I used it, which may or may not matter to you. Otherwise it's easy and fun to use. [1] http://swish-e.org/docs/swish-faq.html#can_swish_e_index_multi_byte_characters_ http://swish-e.org/docs/swish-faq.html#can_swish_e_index_mul...
jaytaylor 12y ago
Never heard of this until now. The last release was 5 years ago in 2009. Anyone have actual experience with it they can share with us? I'm keen to hear HN'ers thoughts and/or opinions. The "who uses it" page lists organizations and sites purported to use it [0], though I can't say I recognize or use any of the listed sites. [0] http://swish-e.org/who.html http://swish-e.org/who.html
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  I've never heard of it also, but it is quite handful. If you are dealing with some files on your computer (or on the web, swish-e can scrape pages and index HTML) you shouldn't need to install and learn a lot of Lucene/elasticsearch, just do: sudo apt-get install swish-e swish-e -i folder/ file.txt file.html swish-search -w 'word'
jamespo 12y ago
I used this in the 90s, it's been around almost as long as the web http://swish-e.org/docs/readme.html#swish_e_s_history http://swish-e.org/docs/readme.html#swish_e_s_history
samspenc 12y ago
I used this extensively during a grad research project almost 6-8 years ago, and for anyone wondering about this, here was what I found: 1. Easy to set up / install 2. Command line tool - so easy to use in scripts / automation 3. Has plugins that let you index almost any file type - PDF, docs, etc. 4. If you want to index an unsupported type (say, index images by file name), you write a plugin yourself. Which wasn't too hard, IIRC. For anyone asking about comparison with Lucene, etc, this is my take on it - Swish-e is really more a search tool that lets you get up and running with searches fairly easily, without too much overhead. I suspect that it might fall apart for more sophisticated search functionality - the type that Lucene really shines at.

22 points by fiatjaf 12y ago

How does Swish compare with Regain/lucene (http://regain.sourceforge.net/ http://regain.sourceforge.net/) and Recoll/xapian (http://recoll.org http://recoll.org)?

bch 12y ago
Multi-byte indexing[1] was the biggest issue I recall the last time I used it, which may or may not matter to you. Otherwise it's easy and fun to use. [1] http://swish-e.org/docs/swish-faq.html#can_swish_e_index_multi_byte_characters_ http://swish-e.org/docs/swish-faq.html#can_swish_e_index_mul...

jaytaylor 12y ago

Never heard of this until now. The last release was 5 years ago in 2009. Anyone have actual experience with it they can share with us? I'm keen to hear HN'ers thoughts and/or opinions. The "who uses it" page lists organizations and sites purported to use it [0], though I can't say I recognize or use any of the listed sites. [0] http://swish-e.org/who.html http://swish-e.org/who.html

fiatjaf 12y ago
I've never heard of it also, but it is quite handful. If you are dealing with some files on your computer (or on the web, swish-e can scrape pages and index HTML) you shouldn't need to install and learn a lot of Lucene/elasticsearch, just do: sudo apt-get install swish-e swish-e -i folder/ file.txt file.html swish-search -w 'word'

jamespo 12y ago

I used this in the 90s, it's been around almost as long as the web http://swish-e.org/docs/readme.html#swish_e_s_history http://swish-e.org/docs/readme.html#swish_e_s_history

samspenc 12y ago

I used this extensively during a grad research project almost 6-8 years ago, and for anyone wondering about this, here was what I found: 1. Easy to set up / install 2. Command line tool - so easy to use in scripts / automation 3. Has plugins that let you index almost any file type - PDF, docs, etc. 4. If you want to index an unsupported type (say, index images by file name), you write a plugin yourself. Which wasn't too hard, IIRC. For anyone asking about comparison with Lucene, etc, this is my take on it - Swish-e is really more a search tool that lets you get up and running with searches fairly easily, without too much overhead. I suspect that it might fall apart for more sophisticated search functionality - the type that Lucene really shines at.