Contents of /mitgcm.org/devel/buildweb/pkg/swish-e/README

NAME
    The Swish-e README File

What is Swish-e?
    Swish-e is Simple Web Indexing System for Humans - Enhanced. Swish-e can
    quickly and easily index directories of files or remote web sites and
    search the generated indexes.

    Swish-e it extremely fast in both indexing and searching, highly
    configurable, and can be seamlessly integrated with existing web sites
    to maintain a consistent design. Swish-e can index web pages, but can
    just as easily index text files, mailing list archives, or data stored
    in a relational database.

    Swish-e version 2.2 represents a major rewrite of the code and the
    addition of many new features. Memory requirements for indexing have
    been reduced, and indexing speed is significantly improved from previous
    versions. New features allow more control over indexing, better document
    parsing, improved indexing and searching logic, better filter code, and
    the ability to index from any data source.

    Swish-e is not a "turn-key" indexing and searching solution. The Swish-e
    distribution contains most of the parts to create such a system, but you
    need to put the parts together as best meets your needs. You will need
    to configure Swish-e to index your documents, create an index by running
    Swish-e, and setup an interface such as a CGI script (a script is
    included). Swish uses helper programs to index documents of types that
    Swish-e cannot natively index. These programs may need to be installed
    separately from Swish-e.

    Swish-e is an Open Source (see: http://opensource.org ) program
    supported by developers and a large group of users. Please take time to
    join the Swish-e discussion list at http://Swish-e.org.

  Key features

    *   Quickly index a large number of documents in different formats
        including text, HTML, and XML

    *   Use "filters" to index other types of files such as PDF, gzip, or
        Postscript.

    *   Includes a web spider for indexing remote documents over HTTP.
        Follows Robots Exclusion Rules (including META tags).

    *   Use an external program to supply documents to Swish-e, such as an
        advanced spider for your web server or a program to read and format
        records from a relational database.

    *   Document "properties" (some subset of the source document, usually
        defined as a META or XML elements) may be stored in the index and
        returned with search results

    *   Document summaries can be returned with each search

    *   Word stemming, soundex, metaphone, and double-metaphone indexing for
        "fuzzy" searching

    *   Phrase searching and wildcard searching

    *   Limit searches to HTML links

    *   Use powerful Regular Expressions to select documents for indexing or
        exclusion

    *   Easily limit searches to parts or all of your web site

    *   Results can be sorted by relevance or by any number of properties in
        ascending or descending order

    *   Limit searches to parts of documents such as certain HTML tags
        (META, TITLE, comments, etc.) or to XML elements.

    *   Can report structural errors in your XML and HTML documents

    *   Index file is portable between platforms.

    *   A Swish-e library is provided to allow embedding Swish-e into your
        applications. A Perl module is available that provides a standard
        API for accessing Swish-e.

    *   Includes example search scripts

    *   Swish-e is fast.

    *   It's open source and FREE! You can customize Swish-e and you can
        contribute your fancy new features to the project.

    *   Supported by on-line user and developer groups

Where do I get Swish-e?
    The current version of Swish-e can be found at:

    http://Swish-e.org

    Please make sure you use a current version of Swish-e.

    Information about Windows binary distributions can also be found at this
    site.

How Do I Install Swish-e?
    Read the INSTALL page.

    Building from source is recommended. On most platforms Swish-e should
    build without problems. Information on building for VMS and Win32 can be
    found in sub-directories of the "src" directory. Check the Swish-e site
    for information about binary distributions (such as for Windows).

    In addition to the INSTALL page, make sure you read the SWISH-FAQ page
    if you have any questions, or to get an idea of questions that you might
    someday ask.

    Problems or questions about installing Swish-e should be directed to the
    Swish-e discussion list (see the Swish-e web site at
    http://Swish-e.org).

The Swish-e Documentation
    Documetation is provided in the Swish-e distribution package in two
    forms, POD (Plain Old Documentation), and in html format. The POD
    documentation is in the pod directory, and the HTML documentation is in
    the html directory, of course.

    If your system includes the required support files and programs, the
    distribution make files can also generate the documentation in these
    formats:

        Postscript
        PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
        system man pages

    You may also build a "split" version of the documentation where each
    topic heading is a separate web page. Building the split version also
    creates a Swish-e index of the documentation that makes the
    documentation searchable via the included Perl CGI program.

    Building these other forms of documentation require additional helper
    applications -- most modern Linux distributions will include all that's
    needed (at least mine does...). You shouldn't have a problem if you have
    kept your Perl and Perl libraries up to date.

    Online documentation can be found at the Swish-e web site listed above.

    See INSTALL for information on creating the PDF and Postscript versions
    of the documentation, and for information on installing the SWISH-*
    documentation as Unix man(1) pages.

  How do I read the Swish-e documentation?

    The Swish-e documentation included with the distribution is in POD and
    HTML formats. The POD documentation can be found in the pod directory,
    and the HTML documentation can be found in the html directory.

    To view the HTML documentation point your browser to the html/index.html
    file.

    The POD documentation is displayed by the "perldoc" command that is
    included with every Perl installation. For example, to view the Swish-e
    installation documentation page called "INSTALL", type

       perldoc pod/INSTALL

    or to make life easier,

       cd pod
       perldoc INSTALL
       perldoc SWISH-RUN

    Complain to your system administrator if the "perldoc" command is not
    available on your machine.

  Included Documentation

    The following documentation is included in this Swish-e distribution.

    If you are new to Swish-e read the INSTALL page to get Swish-e installed
    and tested. Work through the example in shown in the INSTALL page, and
    the examples in the conf directory. Also review the SWISH-FAQ.

    *   README - This file

    *   INSTALL - Installation and basic usage instructions

    *   SWISH-CONFIG - Configuration File Directives

    *   SWISH-RUN - Running Swish and Command Line Switches

    *   SWISH-SEARCH - All about Searching with Swish-e

    *   SWISH-FAQ - Common questions, and some answers

    *   SWISH-LIBRARY - Interface to the Swish-e C library

    *   SWISH-PERL - Instructions for using the Perl library

    *   CHANGES - List of feature changes and bug fixes

    *   SWISH-BUGS - List of known bugs in the release

  Document Generation

    The Swish-e documentation in HTML format was created with
    Pod::HtmlPsPdf, a package of Perl modules written and/or modified by
    Stas Bekman to automate the conversion of documents in pod format (see
    perldoc perlpod) to HTML, Postscript, and PDF. A slightly modified
    version of this package is include with the Swish-e distribution and
    used for building the HTML. As distributed, Swish-e contains only the
    pod and HTML documentation. See INSTALL for instructions on creating
    man(1), Postscript, and PDF formats.

    Thanks, Stas, for your help!

What's included in the Swish-e distribution?
    Here's an overview of the directories included in the Swish-e
    distribution:

    conf/
       Example Swish-e configuration setups to help you get started. After
       reading the INSTALL page, and its included example, review the sample
       configuration in this directory.

    conf/stopwords
       In the "conf/stopwords" sub-directory are a number of stopword files
       for different languages. Use of stopwords is not required with
       Swish-e.

    doc/
       Contains files required for building the HTML, PDF, and Postscript
       documentation.

    example/
       This contains a sample CGI script (swish.cgi) for searching with
       Swish-e. Documentation for using swish.cgi are included within the
       script. Type:

           perldoc example/swish.cgi

       from the top-level directory where the Swish-e distribution was
       unpacked.

    filter-bin/
       Sample programs to use with Swish-e's "filters". Examples include
       PDF, MS Word, and binary strings filters. Filters often require
       installing separate document conversion programs.

    html/
       The documentation in HTML format.

    perl/
       The Perl interface to the Swish-e C library. This Perl module
       provides direct access to Swish-e from within your Perl programs. See
       the perl/README file for more information.

    pod/
       The source for all documentation in perldoc (pod) format.

    prog-bin/
       Example programs and modules to use with the "prog" document source
       access method. Examples include a web spider, a program to index
       directly from a MySQL database, and a program to recurse a directory
       tree. Example Perl modules are provided for converting PDF and
       MS-Word documents into a format usable by Swish-e. See
       prog-bin/README for an overview of the programs and modules, and
       check each file for included documentation.

       The prog-bin/spider.pl program is a web spider program with many
       features. It contains its own documentation. Type:

           perldoc example/spider.pl

       from the top-level directory where the Swish-e distribution was
       unpacked.

       The "prog" document source feature is very powerful, but can be a
       challange to set up when first using Swish-e. Please contact the
       Swish-e disussion list if you have any questions.

    src/
       This directory contains the source code for Swish-e. OS-specific
       directories are also found here.

    tests/
       The documents used for running "make test".

Where do I get help with Swish-e?
    If you need help with installing or using Swish-e please subscribe to
    the Swish-e mailing list. Visit the Swish-e web site listed above for
    information on subscribing to the mailing list.

    Before posting any questions please read QUESTIONS AND TROUBLESHOOTING
    in the INSTALL documentation page.

Speling mistakes
    Please contact the Swish-e list with corrections to this documentation.
    Any help in cleaning up the docs will be appreciated!

    Any patches should be made against the .pod files, not the .html files.

Swish-e Development
    Swish-e is currently being developed as an open source project on
    SourceForge http://sourceforge.net.

    Contact the Swish-e list for questions.

Swish-e's History
    SWISH was created by Kevin Hughes to fill the need of the growing number
    of Web administrators on the Internet - many of the indexing systems
    were not well documented, were hard to use and install, and were too
    complex for their own good. The system was widely used for several
    years, long enough to collect some bug fixes and requests for
    enhancements.

    In Fall 1996, The Library of UC Berkeley received permission from Kevin
    Hughes to implement bug fixes and enhancements to the original binary.
    The result is Swish-enhanced or Swish-e, brought to you by the Swish-e
    Development Team.

Document Info
    Each document in the Swish-e distribution contains this section. It
    refers only to the specific page it's located in, and not to the Swish-e
    program or the documentation as a whole.

    $Id: README.pod,v 1.11 2002/08/20 22:24:08 whmoseley Exp $

    .
1	NAME
2	The Swish-e README File
3
4	What is Swish-e?
5	Swish-e is Simple Web Indexing System for Humans - Enhanced. Swish-e can
6	quickly and easily index directories of files or remote web sites and
7	search the generated indexes.
8
9	Swish-e it extremely fast in both indexing and searching, highly
10	configurable, and can be seamlessly integrated with existing web sites
11	to maintain a consistent design. Swish-e can index web pages, but can
12	just as easily index text files, mailing list archives, or data stored
13	in a relational database.
14
15	Swish-e version 2.2 represents a major rewrite of the code and the
16	addition of many new features. Memory requirements for indexing have
17	been reduced, and indexing speed is significantly improved from previous
18	versions. New features allow more control over indexing, better document
19	parsing, improved indexing and searching logic, better filter code, and
20	the ability to index from any data source.
21
22	Swish-e is not a "turn-key" indexing and searching solution. The Swish-e
23	distribution contains most of the parts to create such a system, but you
24	need to put the parts together as best meets your needs. You will need
25	to configure Swish-e to index your documents, create an index by running
26	Swish-e, and setup an interface such as a CGI script (a script is
27	included). Swish uses helper programs to index documents of types that
28	Swish-e cannot natively index. These programs may need to be installed
29	separately from Swish-e.
30
31	Swish-e is an Open Source (see: http://opensource.org ) program
32	supported by developers and a large group of users. Please take time to
33	join the Swish-e discussion list at http://Swish-e.org.
34
35	Key features
36
37	* Quickly index a large number of documents in different formats
38	including text, HTML, and XML
39
40	* Use "filters" to index other types of files such as PDF, gzip, or
41	Postscript.
42
43	* Includes a web spider for indexing remote documents over HTTP.
44	Follows Robots Exclusion Rules (including META tags).
45
46	* Use an external program to supply documents to Swish-e, such as an
47	advanced spider for your web server or a program to read and format
48	records from a relational database.
49
50	* Document "properties" (some subset of the source document, usually
51	defined as a META or XML elements) may be stored in the index and
52	returned with search results
53
54	* Document summaries can be returned with each search
55
56	* Word stemming, soundex, metaphone, and double-metaphone indexing for
57	"fuzzy" searching
58
59	* Phrase searching and wildcard searching
60
61	* Limit searches to HTML links
62
63	* Use powerful Regular Expressions to select documents for indexing or
64	exclusion
65
66	* Easily limit searches to parts or all of your web site
67
68	* Results can be sorted by relevance or by any number of properties in
69	ascending or descending order
70
71	* Limit searches to parts of documents such as certain HTML tags
72	(META, TITLE, comments, etc.) or to XML elements.
73
74	* Can report structural errors in your XML and HTML documents
75
76	* Index file is portable between platforms.
77
78	* A Swish-e library is provided to allow embedding Swish-e into your
79	applications. A Perl module is available that provides a standard
80	API for accessing Swish-e.
81
82	* Includes example search scripts
83
84	* Swish-e is fast.
85
86	* It's open source and FREE! You can customize Swish-e and you can
87	contribute your fancy new features to the project.
88
89	* Supported by on-line user and developer groups
90
91	Where do I get Swish-e?
92	The current version of Swish-e can be found at:
93
94	http://Swish-e.org
95
96	Please make sure you use a current version of Swish-e.
97
98	Information about Windows binary distributions can also be found at this
99	site.
100
101	How Do I Install Swish-e?
102	Read the INSTALL page.
103
104	Building from source is recommended. On most platforms Swish-e should
105	build without problems. Information on building for VMS and Win32 can be
106	found in sub-directories of the "src" directory. Check the Swish-e site
107	for information about binary distributions (such as for Windows).
108
109	In addition to the INSTALL page, make sure you read the SWISH-FAQ page
110	if you have any questions, or to get an idea of questions that you might
111	someday ask.
112
113	Problems or questions about installing Swish-e should be directed to the
114	Swish-e discussion list (see the Swish-e web site at
115	http://Swish-e.org).
116
117	The Swish-e Documentation
118	Documetation is provided in the Swish-e distribution package in two
119	forms, POD (Plain Old Documentation), and in html format. The POD
120	documentation is in the pod directory, and the HTML documentation is in
121	the html directory, of course.
122
123	If your system includes the required support files and programs, the
124	distribution make files can also generate the documentation in these
125	formats:
126
127	Postscript
128	PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
129	system man pages
130
131	You may also build a "split" version of the documentation where each
132	topic heading is a separate web page. Building the split version also
133	creates a Swish-e index of the documentation that makes the
134	documentation searchable via the included Perl CGI program.
135
136	Building these other forms of documentation require additional helper
137	applications -- most modern Linux distributions will include all that's
138	needed (at least mine does...). You shouldn't have a problem if you have
139	kept your Perl and Perl libraries up to date.
140
141	Online documentation can be found at the Swish-e web site listed above.
142
143	See INSTALL for information on creating the PDF and Postscript versions
144	of the documentation, and for information on installing the SWISH-*
145	documentation as Unix man(1) pages.
146
147	How do I read the Swish-e documentation?
148
149	The Swish-e documentation included with the distribution is in POD and
150	HTML formats. The POD documentation can be found in the pod directory,
151	and the HTML documentation can be found in the html directory.
152
153	To view the HTML documentation point your browser to the html/index.html
154	file.
155
156	The POD documentation is displayed by the "perldoc" command that is
157	included with every Perl installation. For example, to view the Swish-e
158	installation documentation page called "INSTALL", type
159
160	perldoc pod/INSTALL
161
162	or to make life easier,
163
164	cd pod
165	perldoc INSTALL
166	perldoc SWISH-RUN
167
168	Complain to your system administrator if the "perldoc" command is not
169	available on your machine.
170
171	Included Documentation
172
173	The following documentation is included in this Swish-e distribution.
174
175	If you are new to Swish-e read the INSTALL page to get Swish-e installed
176	and tested. Work through the example in shown in the INSTALL page, and
177	the examples in the conf directory. Also review the SWISH-FAQ.
178
179	* README - This file
180
181	* INSTALL - Installation and basic usage instructions
182
183	* SWISH-CONFIG - Configuration File Directives
184
185	* SWISH-RUN - Running Swish and Command Line Switches
186
187	* SWISH-SEARCH - All about Searching with Swish-e
188
189	* SWISH-FAQ - Common questions, and some answers
190
191	* SWISH-LIBRARY - Interface to the Swish-e C library
192
193	* SWISH-PERL - Instructions for using the Perl library
194
195	* CHANGES - List of feature changes and bug fixes
196
197	* SWISH-BUGS - List of known bugs in the release
198
199	Document Generation
200
201	The Swish-e documentation in HTML format was created with
202	Pod::HtmlPsPdf, a package of Perl modules written and/or modified by
203	Stas Bekman to automate the conversion of documents in pod format (see
204	perldoc perlpod) to HTML, Postscript, and PDF. A slightly modified
205	version of this package is include with the Swish-e distribution and
206	used for building the HTML. As distributed, Swish-e contains only the
207	pod and HTML documentation. See INSTALL for instructions on creating
208	man(1), Postscript, and PDF formats.
209
210	Thanks, Stas, for your help!
211
212	What's included in the Swish-e distribution?
213	Here's an overview of the directories included in the Swish-e
214	distribution:
215
216	conf/
217	Example Swish-e configuration setups to help you get started. After
218	reading the INSTALL page, and its included example, review the sample
219	configuration in this directory.
220
221	conf/stopwords
222	In the "conf/stopwords" sub-directory are a number of stopword files
223	for different languages. Use of stopwords is not required with
224	Swish-e.
225
226	doc/
227	Contains files required for building the HTML, PDF, and Postscript
228	documentation.
229
230	example/
231	This contains a sample CGI script (swish.cgi) for searching with
232	Swish-e. Documentation for using swish.cgi are included within the
233	script. Type:
234
235	perldoc example/swish.cgi
236
237	from the top-level directory where the Swish-e distribution was
238	unpacked.
239
240	filter-bin/
241	Sample programs to use with Swish-e's "filters". Examples include
242	PDF, MS Word, and binary strings filters. Filters often require
243	installing separate document conversion programs.
244
245	html/
246	The documentation in HTML format.
247
248	perl/
249	The Perl interface to the Swish-e C library. This Perl module
250	provides direct access to Swish-e from within your Perl programs. See
251	the perl/README file for more information.
252
253	pod/
254	The source for all documentation in perldoc (pod) format.
255
256	prog-bin/
257	Example programs and modules to use with the "prog" document source
258	access method. Examples include a web spider, a program to index
259	directly from a MySQL database, and a program to recurse a directory
260	tree. Example Perl modules are provided for converting PDF and
261	MS-Word documents into a format usable by Swish-e. See
262	prog-bin/README for an overview of the programs and modules, and
263	check each file for included documentation.
264
265	The prog-bin/spider.pl program is a web spider program with many
266	features. It contains its own documentation. Type:
267
268	perldoc example/spider.pl
269
270	from the top-level directory where the Swish-e distribution was
271	unpacked.
272
273	The "prog" document source feature is very powerful, but can be a
274	challange to set up when first using Swish-e. Please contact the
275	Swish-e disussion list if you have any questions.
276
277	src/
278	This directory contains the source code for Swish-e. OS-specific
279	directories are also found here.
280
281	tests/
282	The documents used for running "make test".
283
284	Where do I get help with Swish-e?
285	If you need help with installing or using Swish-e please subscribe to
286	the Swish-e mailing list. Visit the Swish-e web site listed above for
287	information on subscribing to the mailing list.
288
289	Before posting any questions please read QUESTIONS AND TROUBLESHOOTING
290	in the INSTALL documentation page.
291
292	Speling mistakes
293	Please contact the Swish-e list with corrections to this documentation.
294	Any help in cleaning up the docs will be appreciated!
295
296	Any patches should be made against the .pod files, not the .html files.
297
298	Swish-e Development
299	Swish-e is currently being developed as an open source project on
300	SourceForge http://sourceforge.net.
301
302	Contact the Swish-e list for questions.
303
304	Swish-e's History
305	SWISH was created by Kevin Hughes to fill the need of the growing number
306	of Web administrators on the Internet - many of the indexing systems
307	were not well documented, were hard to use and install, and were too
308	complex for their own good. The system was widely used for several
309	years, long enough to collect some bug fixes and requests for
310	enhancements.
311
312	In Fall 1996, The Library of UC Berkeley received permission from Kevin
313	Hughes to implement bug fixes and enhancements to the original binary.
314	The result is Swish-enhanced or Swish-e, brought to you by the Swish-e
315	Development Team.
316
317	Document Info
318	Each document in the Swish-e distribution contains this section. It
319	refers only to the specific page it's located in, and not to the Swish-e
320	program or the documentation as a whole.
321
322	$Id: README.pod,v 1.11 2002/08/20 22:24:08 whmoseley Exp $
323
324	.