Search Bundle

Installation

1. First install the bundle via composer:

   composer require becklyn/search-bundle

2. Load the bundle in your AppKernel

Configuration

Entity annotations

Marking a class for indexing

For regular entities just mark the class with the annotation and implement the SearchableEntityInterface interface:

use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Entity\SearchableEntityInterface;
use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Mapping as Search;

/**
 * @Search\Item()
 */
class SomeEntity implements SearchableEntityInterface
{
}

For localized entities, mark the class and implement the LocalizedSearchableEntityInterface interface:

use Becklyn\Interfaces\LanguageInterface;
use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Entity\LocalizedSearchableEntityInterface;
use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Mapping as Search;

/**
 * @Search\Item(
 *   index="custom-index-name",
 *   loader="some.service:method",
 * )
 */
class LocalizedSomeEntity implements LocalizedSearchableEntityInterface
{
    /**
     * @return LanguageInterface
     */
    public function getLanguage ()
    {
        
    }
}

Note: you will need the LanguageInterface from the becklyn/interfaces package.

@Search\Item() annotation

/**
 * @Search\Item(
 *   index="custom-index-name",
 *   loader="some.service:method",
 * )
 */

Property	Description
index	The name of the index. If none is given, the name is automatically generated from the FQCN of the class.
loader	The custom entity loader. Please refer to the chapter about entity loaders to learn more.
autoIndex	(Default true) Whether the searchable item should be indexed automatically whenever it's persisted or updated in Doctrine. Learn more

Marking a field / getter for indexing

use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Mapping as Search;

class SomeEntity
{
    /**
     * @Search\Field()
     */
    private $headline;
    
    /**
     * @Search\Field()
     */
    public function getSomeData ()
    {
    }
}

Please note that a protected / private property test needs to have a way to access it, either via getter getTest(), isser isTest() or hasser hasTest().

@Search\Field() annotation

/**
 * @Search\Field(
 *   weight=1,
 *   fragments=null,
 *   format="plain",
 * )
 */

Property	Description
weight	The value with which this field is boosted when searching.
fragments	The number of highlight fragments returned when searching. null returns the complete text of the hit.
format	The format of this field. Defines which format_processor is used to manipulate the property/getter value.

App configuration

The config belongs in app/config.yml.

A full configuration example:

becklyn_search:
    server: "127.0.0.1:9200"
    index: "app-index-{language}"
    format_processors:
        html: "app.content.renderer"            # short version 
        pdf:                                    # full version
            service: "pdf.ocr.text_extractor"
            html_post_process: true
    analyzers:
        analyzer_en:
            tokenizer: lowercase
            filter:
                - standard
                - lowercase
                - stemmer_en
                - asciifolding
                - default_filter_shingle
            char_filter:
                - filter_1
                - filter_2
    filters:
        stemmer_en:
            type: stemmer
            name: english
    unlocalized:
        analyzer: analyzer_default # a string value means that both index and search use the same analyzer
    localized:
        de:
            analyzer: 
                index: analyzer_en
                search: analyzer_en

Key	Description
server	(required) The DSN to connect to the server.
index	(required) The pattern with which the index names are generated. The {language} placeholder must be included and will be replace with the language code.
format_processors	Processors for different text formats. If a field with a given processor is indexed, the processor is called and html_post_processed, if it is selected. This will clean up the HTML (a better version of strip_tags), so that the processor can transform the format to HTML (and have it transformed to plain text afterwards). Default for html_post_process is false.
analyzers	A list of custom analyzers. The syntax mirrors the Elasticsearch API.
filters	A list of custom filters. The syntax mirrors the Elasticsearch API.
unlocalized	The definition for all unlocalized entities. Currently only the selection of custom analyzers is possible.
localized	The configuration for localized entities in every language. Currently only the selection of custom analyzers is possible.

Usage

Searching

Just get the becklyn.search.client service and search with it:

$searchResult = $this->get("becklyn.search.client")->search(
    string $query, 
    LanguageInterface $language = null, 
    array $itemClasses = [],
    array $filters = []
);

The method has three parameters:

Argument	Type	Description
query	string	The query string to search for.
language	`LanguageInterface	null`
itemClasses	string[]	The FQCN of the entities, that should be searched. If no explicit entity class is given, all (indexed) entities are searched.
filters	string[]	The filter values. See the chapter about Filtering for details.

Indexing

You can either index an entity manually via a CLI command, by calling a concrete service, or automatically by using the built-in doctrine event listeners.

Automatic indexing

Doctrine-managed entities are by default automatically indexed upon persistence/updating due to an built-in doctrine lifecycle event listener.

Disabling automatic indexing

The Becklyn\SearchBundle\Mapping\Item annotation allows you to configure how a search item is indexed. By default annotated classes will be indexed automatically whenever it's persisted or updated in Doctrine.

For use cases where you don't want your entities to be indexed immediatelly, e.g. when it needs further processing, you can set Becklyn\SearchBundle\Mapping\Item#autoIndex to false. This will force the Doctrine lifecycle handler to skip the automatic index update for this entity.

Warning This shifts the responsibility of indexing an entity from the bundle's code into the application's code by invoking the becklyn.search.indexer.

$this->get("becklyn.search.indexer")->index(SearchableEntityInterface $entity);

Or by running the Symfony CLI becklyn:search:index command. The index command isn't affected by this option.

Manual indexing

CLI command indexing

To (re-)index your entities from the CLI, the becklyn/search-bundle exposes the becklyn:search:index command. For more commands please see the CLI commands section.

The becklyn:search:index command indexes all entities irregardless of the autoIndex setting.

Programatic indexing

If you want to index programatically, just retrieve an instance of the becklyn.search.indexer service and call the index method:

$this->get("becklyn.search.indexer")->index(SearchableEntityInterface $entity);

Modifying the indexed data

The indexed data can be modified by listening to the "becklyn_search.index" event (or Becklyn\SearchBundle\Event\IndexEntityEvent::EVENT).

Your listener receives an Becklyn\SearchBundle\Event\IndexEntityEvent with the already serialized data and the entity to serialize:

use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Event\IndexEntityEvent;

public function myEventListener (IndexEntityEvent $event)
{
    $data = $event->getData();
    $entity = $event->getEntity();
    
    if (42 === $entity->getId())
    {
        $data["property-headline"] = "The answer to everything.";
        $event->setData($data);
    }
}

For now, the listener has to know the internal field name, unfortunately. This will be improved in a future version.

Entity Loader

A search item can define a custom entity loader:

use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Mapping as Search;

/**
 * @Search\Item(loader="custom.service:method")
 */
class Example
{
}

If a custom loader is defined, the service is fetched and the method called. The loader syntax translates to a call like this:

/**
 * @Search\Item(loader="custom.service:method")
 */ 
 
// --> will load the entities using
$container->get("custom.service")->method(int[] $ids = null);

The method must have an optional array parameter. If the loader is called with null, all entities should be returned. If the loader is called with int[], only the entities with an id in the int array have to be loaded.

It is not required to load entities for all provided ids, as the missing search results will just be removed from the result list.

The loader must return an EntityLoaderResult.

Filtering

In some cases the searched items should be filtered by a field other than the language.

use Becklyn\SearchBundle\Mapping as Search;

class SomeClass 
{
    /**
     * @Search\Filter("filter")
     */
    public $property;
    
    /**
     * @Search\Filter("another-filter")
     */
    public function method ()
    {
        // ...
    }
}

The annotation has a single required attribute: the name of the filter. This name needs to be unique across the app.

When searching, you can filter for hits with this specific filter values like this:

$searchResult = $this->get("becklyn.search.client")->search(
    "some search text", 
    $english, 
    [],
    [
        "filter" => "value",
        "another-filter" => "another value",
    ]
);

CLI Commands

The bundle exposes multiple CLI commands.

Command	Description
becklyn:search:client	Search directly from the CLI
becklyn:search:debug	Shows various debug output and tests connection to the ElasticSearch
becklyn:search:index	(Re-)indexes all entities
becklyn:search:metadata	(Re-)generates and caches entity metadata

For additional parameters and options for each command, please directly consult the commands help, e.g. php bin/console becklyn:search:client --help.