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INSTALL - SWISH-E Installation Instructions


Table of Contents:

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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

SWISH-E 2.0 is written in C, and, up to this time, it has been tested on Solaris 2.6, AIX 4.3.2, OpenVMS 7.2-1 AXP, RedHat Linux 6.2 (and other Linux distributions) and Win32 platforms.

Unless you are using the included Win32 binary, a C compiler is needed. Pretty much any standard compiler should do, although you will probably have best luck with a current version of gcc. If you are using something else (such as HP-UX or AIX) you may see more warnings during the build process. Any problems should be sent to the swish-e discussion list after searching the list archives.

libxml2

Swish-e 2.2 can (and probably should) use the libxml2 library for parsing HTML and XML files. This library can be found at http://www.xmlsoft.org/. Instructions for installing and enabling the library are described below.

Currently, the libxml2 library is not required, but is a much better parser than the tired old swish-e html parser (html.c). Please see the Swish-e FAQ SWISH-FAQ for more discussion of the use of libxml2.

Swish's old xml.c paser has been rewritten to use James Clark's Expat library (included with the swish-e distribution), but Swish's old html.c code is still broken in a number of ways. Libxml2 is comparable to Expat, but offers a much better HTML parser that swish-e's html.c parser. Use libxml2 if possible for parsing HTML and XML.

Currently, setting a content type (IndexContents or DefaultContents) of HTML uses swish's html.c parser, where HTML2 uses libxml2's HTML parser. Likewise, a setting of XML uses the included Expat library, where XML2 uses libxml2 for parsing XML. All this may change in future releases.

http://www.xmlsoft.org

zlib compression

Swish can make use of zlib to compress document properties. This is recommended if you are using StoreDescription

http://www.gzip.org/zlib/

Memory

Swish needs quite a bit of memory while indexing. How much depends on what you are indexing. The index is portable between platforms, so you can index on a machine that has lots of memory available and move the index file(s) to another machine for searching. Use the -e switch if you are short on memory.

Perl modules

The HTTP document source method uses a Perl helper script that requires the LWP, HTTP, and HTML modules. (Note: depending on your perl installation, you might need to install additional modules required by LWP; for requirements and downloads check http://www.cpan.org or http://search.cpan.org). The Perl helper script was tested with perl 5.005 although should probably work with any version 5 release. Do note that the LWP, HTTP, and HTML modules are updated often for bug fixes and such -- do check for upgrades.

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Platform Specific Information

A configure script is used to determine platform specific details for building swish. Please contact the SWISH-E discussion list if you notice any platform specific problems while building SWISH-E.

Specific information for various platforms can be found in subdirectories of the src directory. For example, the Win32 binary for Windows can be found in src/win32, and instructions for building under VMS can be found in src/vms.

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INSTALLATION

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Using libxml2 parser library (optional, but recommended)

Daniel Veillard's libxml2 is a well supported library for working with HTML and XML documents. Swish-e can now use libxml2 to parse HTML and XML documents.

The libxml2 source code can be downloaded from http://www.xmlsoft.org.

Installing the libxml2 library is not required at this time, but is recommended, espeically if you are parsing HTML. As mentioned above, the XML parser that is included with swish uses James Clarks's Expat library and works well. The HTML parser in swish has been in use for years, but the parser provided by libxml2 is preferred. The libxml2 HTML parser offers more features (and more features for parsing XML), and is more accurate. If you are running Linux it may already be installed (look for libxml2.so.2.4.5 or higher).

The library can be downloaded from http://www.xmlsoft.org/. Installation directions are included in the INSTALL file in the libxml2 package. Uncompressing, building, and installation of libxml2 is very similar to the way Swish-e is built.

If libxml2 complains during compilation that it can not find zlib then you may need to specify the location of libz. This happens (on Solaris) when the ./configure script finds the zlib header files, but the compiler and linker do not know to look in /usr/local/lib for the library. You may see an error like:

 
    ld: fatal: library -lz: not found
    ld: fatal: File processing errors. No output written to .libs/libxml2.so.2.4.5
    *** Error code 1

In this case, try specifying where zlib can be found. For example, if libz was located in /usr/local/lib you would use this when building libxml2:

 
    ./configure --with-zlib=/usr/local

Swish-e doesn't use libxml2 uncompression features, so you *should* be able to disable zlib.

 
    ./configure --without-zlib

NOTE: But, that doesn't seem to work at this time (as of version libxml2-2.4.5).

If you do not have root access you can specify a prefix when building libxml2:

 
    ./configure --prefix=$HOME/local

This will install the headers and library files in $HOME/local/include and $HOME/local/lib. You will need to inform the swish-e build process of this non-standard directory location (explained below).

Once you run the configure script you build and install the library as the libxml2 INSTALL page instructs:

 
    make
    make install

Building Swish with libxml2

To enable swish to use libxml2 you must run swish-e's configure script as:

 
    ./configure --with-libxml2

If libxml2 was installed in a non-standard location then specify the path where libxml2 was installed. For example,

 
    ./configure --with-libxml2=$HOME/local

If libxml2 is installed in a non-standard location, swish needs to know where that library is at run time. There seems to be a number of ways to do this. First, you can set the environment variable LD_RUN_PATH *before* running make to create swish. This will add the path directly to the swish-e executable file.

For example, under Bourne type shells:

 
    LD_RUN_PATH=$HOME/local/lib make

Other shells may require

 
    setenv LD_RUN_PATH $HOME/local/lib
    make

Another option is to use the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. This is a list of directories to search for libraries when a program is run. See the ld(8) man page for more info

Note that libxml2 will be linked as a shared library, so once you compile Swish-e to use the library, the libxml2 library must not be deleted or moved.

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Building Swish with zlib

Building with zlib is similar to the instructions for building swish-e with libxml2 above. To select support for zlib run configure with:

 
    ./configure --with-zlib

zlib is common on many systems, but may be out of date. You should run at least version 1.1.3. To link with zlib in a non-standard location use, for example:

 
    ./configure --with-zlib=$HOME/zlib

Again, you may need

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Downloading and unpacking and building Swish-e

If you are reading this INSTALL document, then you probably already have downloaded and unpacked the distribution. But just in case...

Make sure you are using the current stable release from http://swish-e.org. How you download is up to you: lynx, lwp-download, wget are all common methods.

  1. Uncompress the distribution file

     
       gzip -dc swish-e.x.x.tar.gz | tar xof -

    or on some versions of tar, simply

     
       tar zxof swish-e.x.x.tar.gz

    Uncompressing should create the following directories:

     
       swish-e-x.x/            configure script and top-level Makefile
       swish-e-x.x/pod/        swish-e documentation
       swish-e-x.x/html/       HTML version of the documentation
       swish-e-x.x/src/        source code
       swish-e-x.x/conf/       example configuration files and stopword files
       swish-e-x.x/example/    working example CGI scripts
       swish-e-x.x/filter-bin/ filter samples
       swish-e-x.x/prog-bin/   -S prog a web spider and other examples
       swish-e-x.x/perl/       perl interface to the SWISH-E C library
       swish-e-x.x/src/expat/  James Clark's Expat XML parser
       swish-e-x.x/src/win32/  win32 binary and buid files
       swish-e-x.x/src/vms/    files required for building under VMS
       swish-e-x.x/tests/      tests used for running "make test"
       swish-e-x.x/doc/        directory used or building the documentation

  2. Make any needed changes in src/config.h

    Compile-time configuration settings are adjusted in the file src/config.h. Most of the settings may also be specified in the configuration file used during indexing. You probably will not need to change this file, but it's helpful to become familiar with the default compiled-in settings.

  3. Build SWISH-E

    Building swish-e on most systems is a simple procedure. In the swish-e-x.x/ top level directory type the following commands

     
       ./configure
       make
       make test

    Note: If you wish to use libxml2 or zlib please see the previous section.

    The above will create the swish-e executable src/swish-e and test that the executable is working correctly. make test will generate an index file in the tests directory and run a number of searches against this index.

    You may optionally ``build'' the swish-search executable. This is a version of swish-e that cannot write to the index file. This version may provide somewhat improved security in a CGI environment. The binaries swish-e and swish-search are the same files -- the additional security is enabled when the binary is named swish-search. swish-search is not a substitute for good file system and CGI security.

    Again, this is an optional step:

     
       make swish-search

    which simply copies the file swish-e to swish-search.

  4. Install swish-e

    Move the swish-e (and/or swish-search) executable to its final location (normally /usr/local/bin). You may simply copy the program anywhere you see fit, or you may use the make install command to install it to the location defined by the configure script:

    You may need to superuser privileges:

     
       su root
       make install
       exit

    IMPORTANT: Do not *run* swish as the superuser (root).

    The bin directory may be set when first running ./configure. For example:

     
       ./configure --bindir=$HOME/bin

    sets the installation directory to $HOME/bin and make install will install the program in that location.

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Join the SWISH-E discussion list

The SWISH-E discussion list is the place to ask questions about installing and using swish-e, see or post bug fix or security announcements, and a place where you can offer help to others.

The list is typically very low traffic, so it won't overload your inbox. Please take time to subscribe. See http://swish-e.org.

If you are using SWISH-E on a public site, please let the list know so it can be added to the list of sites that use SWISH-E!

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Installing the SWISH-E C Library (optional)

Swish 2.2 creates the C library libswish-e.a during the build. Install this library if you wish to embed SWISH-E into another application. For example, the library should be installed before using the high level Perl SWISH modules located on CPAN. http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=module&query=SWISH

This is an optional step.

To install the library issue the following commands (again, you may need to su root)

 
   su root
   make install-lib
   exit

By default this will install the library in /usr/local/lib, but this directory can be set when running ./configure with the --libdir option. For example:

 
   ./configure --bindir=$HOME/bin --libdir=$HOME/lib

So make install will install the swish-e binary in $HOME/bin and make install-lib will install the libswish-e.a library in $HOME/lib.

Note: You may wish to run make realclean before running ./configure again.

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Creating PDF and Postscript documentation (optional)

The SWISH-E documentation in HTML format was created with Pod::HtmlPsPdf, a package of Perl modules written and/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.

If your system has the necessary tools to build Postscript and the converter ps2pdf installed, you may be able to build the Postscript and PDF versions of the documentation. After you have run ./configure, type from the top-level directory of the distribution:

 
    make pdf

And with any luck you will end up with the these two files in the top-level directory:

 
    swish-e_documentation.pdf
    swish-e_documentation.ps

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Installing the SWISH-E documentation as man(1) pages (optional)

Part of the included SWISH-E documentation can be installed as system man(1) pages. Only the reference related pages are installed (it's assumed that you don't need to install the README or INSTALL documents as man pages). You must have the pod2man program installed on your system (which you probably do if you have Perl).

To build the man pages and install them into your system, type from the top-level directory (after running ./configure):

 
    su root
    make install-man
    exit

You will need to su root if you do not have write access to the man directory. The man pages are installed in the system man directory. This directory is determined by running ./configure and can be set by passing the directory when running ./configure.

For example,

 
    ./configure --mandir=/usr/local/doc/man

Information on running ./configure can be found by typing:

 
    ./configure --help

The pod source files used to create the man files were written running under perl 5.6.0. Older version of Perl may complain slightly about the formatting of the pod files. This shouldn't be a problem, but please let the swish-e list know if otherwise.

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QUESTIONS AND TROUBLESHOOTING

Please search the SWISH-E list archive before posting a question, and check the SWISH-FAQ to see if your question hasn't already been asked.

Support for installation, configuration and usage is available via the SWISH-E discussion list. Visit http://swish-e.org for information. Do not contact developers directly for help -- always post your question to the list.

Before posting use tools available to narrow down the problem.

SWISH-E has the -T, -v, and -k switches that may help resolve issues. If possible find a single document that shows the problem, then index with -T INDEXED_WORDS and watch the exact words that are indexed. Use -H 9 when searching and look at Parsed Words: to make sure you are searching the correct words.

You can also use programs like gdb to help find segfaults and other run-time errors, and programs like truss or strace can often provide interesting information, if you are adventurous.

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When posting please provide the following information:

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BASIC CONFIGURATION AND USAGE

This section should give you a basic overview of indexing and searching with SWISH-E. Other examples can be found in the conf directory, and you should review the SWISH-FAQ.

SWISH-E reads a configuration file (see SWISH-CONFIG) for directives that control what and how SWISH-E indexes files. Then running SWISH-E is controlled by command line arguments (see SWISH-RUN). Swish does not require a configuration file, but most people need to change the default behavior of swish by settings in a configuration file.

To try the examples below change to the tests subdirectory of the distribution. The tests will use the *.html files in this directory when creating the test index. You may wish to review these *.html files to get an idea of the various native file formats that SWISH-E supports.

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Step 1: Create a Configuration File

The configuration file controls what and how SWISH-E indexes. The configuration file consists of directives, comments, and blank lines. The configuration file can be any name you like.

This example will work with the documents in the tests directory. You may wish to review the tests/test.config configuration file used for the make test tests.

For example, a simple configuration file (swish-e.conf):

 
    # Example SWISH-E Configuration file

 
    # Define *what* to index
    # IndexDir can point to a directories and/or a files

 
    # Here it's pointing to the current directory
    IndexDir .

 
    # But only index the .html files
    IndexOnly .html

 
    # Show basic info while indexing
    IndexReport 1

And that's a simple configuration file. It says to index all the .html files in the current directory, and provide some basic output while indexing.

The complete list of all configuration file directives are described in SWISH-CONFIG.

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Step 2: Index your Files

Now, make sure you are in the tests directory and save the above example configuration file as swish-e.conf. Then run swish using the -c switch to specify the name of the configuration file.

 
    ../src/swish-e -c swish-e.conf

 
    Indexing Data Source: "File-System"
    Indexing "."
    Removing very common words...
    no words removed.
    Writing main index...
    Sorting words ...
    Sorting 55 words alphabetically
    Writing header ...
    Writing index entries ...
      Writing word text: Complete
      Writing word hash: Complete
      Writing word data: Complete
    55 unique words indexed.
    Writing file list ...
    Property Sorting complete.                                         
    Writing sorted index ...
    5 files indexed.  1252 total bytes.
    Elapsed time: 00:00:00 CPU time: 00:00:00
    Indexing done!

This created the index file index.swish-e. This is the default index file name unless the IndexFile directive is specified in the configuration file:

 
    IndexFile ./website.index

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Step 3: Search

You specify your search terms with the -w switch. For example, to find the files that contain the word sample you would issue the command:

 
    ../src/swish-e -w sample

This example assumes that you are in the tests directory, and the swish-e binary is in the ../src directory. Swish returns in response to that command the following:

 
    ../src/swish-e -w sample

 
    # SWISH format: 2.2
    # Search words: sample
    # Number of hits: 2
    # Search time: 0.000 seconds
    # Run time: 0.005 seconds
    1000 ./test_xml.html "If you are seeing this, the METATAG XML search was successful!" 159
    1000 ./test.html "If you are seeing this, the test was successful!" 437
    .

So the word sample was found in two documents. The first number shown is the relevance or rank of the search term, followed by the file containing the search term, the title of the document, and finally the length of the document.

The period (``.'') alone at the end marks the end of results.

Much more information may be retrieved while searching by using the -x and -H switches (see SWISH-RUN) and by using Document Properties (see SWISH-CONFIG).

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Phrase Searching

To search for a phrase in a document use double-quotes to delimit your search terms. (The phrase delimiter is set in src/swish.h.)

You must protect the quotes from the shell.

For example, under Unix:

 
    swish-e -w '"this is a pharase" or (this and that)'
    swish-e -w 'meta1=("this is a pharase") or (this and that)'

Or under Windows command.com shell.

 
    swish-e -w \"this is a pharase\" or (this and that)

The phrase delimiter can be set with the -P switch.

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Boolean Searching

You can use the Boolean operators and, or, or not in searching. Without these Boolean, SWISH-E will assume you're anding the words together.

Here are some examples:

 
    ../src/swish-e -w 'apples oranges'
    ../src/swish-e -w 'apples and oranges'  ( Same thing )

 
    ../src/swish-e -w 'apples or oranges'

 
    ../src/swish-e -w 'apples or oranges not juice' -f myIndex 

retrieves first the files that contain both the words ``apples'' and ``oranges''; then among those the ones that do not contain the word ``juice''

A few others to ponder:

 
    ../src/swish-e -w 'apples and oranges or pears'
    ../src/swish-e -w '(apples and oranges) or pears'  ( Same thing )
    ../src/swish-e -w 'apples and (oranges or pears)'  ( Not the same thing )

See SWISH-SEARCH for more information.

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Context Searching

The -t option in the search command line allows you to search for words that exist only in specific HTML tags. Each character in the string you specify in the argument to this option represents a different tag in which the word is searched; that is you can use any combinations of the following characters:

 
    H means all <HEAD> tags
    B stands for <BODY> tags
    t is all <TITLE> tags
    h is <H1> to <H6> (header) tags
    e is emphasized tags (this may be <B>, <I>, <EM>, or <STRONG>)
    c is HTML comment tags (<!-- ... -->)

For example:

 
    # Find only documents with the word "linux" in the E<lg>TITLEE<gt> tags.
    ./swish-e -w linux -t t

 
    # Find the word "apple" in titles or comments
    ./swish-e -w apple -t tc

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META Tags

For the last example we will instruct swish to use META tags to define fields in your documents.

META names are a way to define ``fields'' in your documents. You can use the META names in your queries to limit the search to just the words contained in that META name of your document. For example, you might have a META tagged field in your documents called subjects and then you can search your documents for the word ``foo'' but only return documents where ``foo'' is within the subjects META tag.

Document Properties are somewhat related to meta tags: Properties allow the contents of a META tag in a source document to be stored within the index, and that text to be returned along with search results.

META tags can have two formats in your documents.

 
    <META NAME="keyName" CONTENT="some Content">

And in XML format

 
    <keyName>
        Some Content
    </keyName>

If using libxml, you can optionally use a non-html tag as a metaname:

 
    <html>
    <body>
        Hello swish users!
        <keyName>
            this is meta data
        </keyName>.
    </body>

This, of course, is invalid HTML.

To continue with our sample swish-e.conf file, add the following lines:

 
    # Define META tags
    MetaNames meta1 meta2 meta3

Reindex to include the changes:

 
    ../src/swish-e -c swish-e.conf

Now search, but this time limit your search to META tag ``meta1'':

 
    ../src/swish-e -w 'meta1=metatest1'

Again, please see SWISH-RUN and SWISH-CONFIG for complete documentation of the various indexing and searching options.

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Additional Examples

The above example indexes local files using the file system access method -S fs. You may also index files that are located on a local or remote web server by using the HTTP access method -S http, or via the prog input method -S prog. These are described in SWISH-RUN and example configuration files for using these methods can be found in the conf directory of the swish-e distribution.

The -S prog access method can be used to index any type of document, such as documents stored in a database (RDBMS), or documents that need to be processed before they can be indexed. Examples for using the -S prog method are shown in the prog-bin directory>.

Swish can also use filters to convert documents as they are processed by swish. For example, MS-Word or PDF documents can be converted and indexed by swish-e by using filters. See the section on filters in SWISH-CONFIG, and the examples shown in the filter-bin directory.

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Document Info

$Id: INSTALL.pod,v 1.14 2001/12/26 18:33:52 whmoseley Exp $

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