Indexing and searching text with Lucene
Smart Search
Even state-of-the-art computers need to use clever methods to process ever-increasing amounts of document data. The open source Lucene framework uses inverted indexing for fast searches of document collections.
Nowadays, almost any commercially available hard drive can store more text than a whole library. In the digital world, a traditional system such as a card catalog or a knowledgeable librarian is no longer adequate to help find the right shelf. Even software equivalents such as find or zgrep are not always fast enough to track a particular piece of information amongst giga- or terabytes of data.
The science that deals with this type of search problem is called information retrieval. Computer scientists have developed sophisticated methods for tracking down files that users don’t even know exist. The free Java library Lucene implements some of these methods. Doug Cutting published an early version of Lucene in 1999. Two years later, the project, which carries the middle name of Cutting’s wife, came under the auspices of the Apache Foundation when it joined the Apache Jakarta Project. Lucene has been available in Version 4.0 since October 2012. The index file structures are backward compatible, so the transition from 3.6 to 4.0 does not cause any problems. Over the years, Lucene has become one of the most widely used solutions for indexing and searching text. (See the box titled “Lucene In All Its Facets.”)
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.