swish++.index(4)

NAME
swish++.index - SWISH++ index file format

SYNOPSIS
long	num_words;
off_t	word_offset[ num_words ];
long	num_stop_words;
off_t	stop_word_offset[ num_stop_words ];
long	num_directories;
off_t	directory_offset[ num_directories ];
long	num_files;
off_t	file_offset[ num_files ];
long	num_meta_names;
off_t	meta_name_offset[ num_meta_names ];
	word index
	stop-word index
	directory index
	file index
	meta-name index

DESCRIPTION
The index file format used by SWISH++ is as shown above. Every word_offset is an offset into the word index pointing at the first character of a word entry; similarly, every stop_word_offset is an offset into the stop-word index pointing at the first character of a stop-word entry; similarly, every directory_offset is an offset into the directory index pointing at the first character of a directory entry; similarly, every file_offset is an offset into the file index pointing at the first byte of a file entry; finally, every meta_name_offset is an offset into the mete-name index pointing at the first character of a meta-name entry.

The index file is written as it is so that it can be mapped into memory via the mmap(2) Unix system call enabling ``instantaneous'' access.

  Encoded Integers
All integers in an index file are stored in an encoded format for compactness. An integer is encoded to use a varying number of bytes. For a given byte, only the lower 7 bits are used for data; the high bit, if set, is used to indicate whether the integer continues into the next byte. The encoded integer is in big-endian byte order. For example, the integers 0-127 are encoded as single bytes of \x00-\x7F, respectively; the integer 128 is encoded as the two bytes of \x8100.

Note that the byte \x80 will never be the first byte of an encoded integer (although it can be any other byte); therefore, it can be used as a marker to embed extra information into an encoded integer byte sequence.

  Encoded Integer Lists
Because the high bit of the last byte of an encoded integer is always clear, lists of encoded integers can be stored one right after the other with no separators. For example, the byte sequence \x010203 encodes the three separate integers 1, 2, and 3; the byte sequence \x81002A8101 encodes the three integers 128, 42, and 129.

  Word Entries
Every word entry in the word index is of the form: word0{data}... that is: a null-terminated word followed by one or more data entries where a data entry is: {F}{O}{R}[{list}...]{marker} that is: a file-index (F) followed by the number of occurrences in the file (O) followed by a rank (R) followed by zero or more lists of integers followed by a marker byte. The file-index is an index into the file_offset table; the marker byte is one of:

    00  Another data entry follows.
    80  No more data entries follow.

A list is: {type}{I}...x80 that is: a type followed by one or more integers (I) followed by an \x80 byte where type defines the type of list, i.e., what the integers mean. Currently, there is only one type of list:

01  Meta-ID list. Meta-IDs are unique integers identifying which meta name(s) a word is associated with in the meta-name index.

02  Word-position list. Every word in a file has a position: the first word is 1, the second word is 2, etc. Each word position is stored as a delta from the previous position for compactness.

  Stop-Word Entries
Every stop-word entry in the stop-word index is of the form: stop-word0 that is: every word is null-terminated.

  Directory Entries
Every directory entry in the directory index is of the form: directory-path0 that is: a null-terminated full pathname of a directory (not including the trailing slash). The pathnames are relative to where the indexing was performed (unless absolute paths were used).

  File Entries
Every file entry in the file index is of the form: {D}file-name0{S}{W}file-title0 that is: the file's directory index (D) followed by a null-terminated file name followed by the file's size in bytes (S) followed by the number of words in the file (W) followed by the file's null-terminated title.

For an HTML or XHTML file, the title is what is between <TITLE> ... </TITLE> pairs; for an MP3 file, the title is the value of title field; for a mail or news file, the title is the value of the Subject header; for a LaTeX file, the title is the argument of the \title command; for a Unix manual page file, the title is the contents of the first line within the NAME section. If a file is not one of those types of files, or is but does not have a title, the title is simply the file (not path) name.

  Meta-Name Entries
Every meta-name entry in the meta-name index is of the form: meta-name0{I} that is: a null-terminated meta-name followed by the ID (I).

CAVEATS
Generated index files are machine-dependent (size of data types and byte-order).

SEE ALSO
index(1), search(1)

AUTHOR
Paul J. Lucas <pauljlucas@mac.com>