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dtSearch Text Retrieval Engine -- Java API 7.70
SearchFilter Class
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The SearchFilter object provides a way to designate which documents can be returned by a search.

Class Hierarchy
public class SearchFilter;
File

SearchFilter.java

Description

It is useful in situations where a text search using must be combined with a search of a database. The database search is done first, and then the results of the database search are used to limit the dtSearch search.

Document Ids

Search filters do not use names to identify documents because a filter may specify thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of documents, and a table of filenames would take too much memory and would take too long to check. Instead, each document is identified by (a) the index it belongs to, and (b) the document's DocId, a unique integer that is assigned to each document in an index. The docId for a document can be obtained by searching for the document by name, and then examining the document's properties in search results. It can also be obtained during indexing by using the DataSource2 abstract class as the base for your data source implementation. 

A docId that is selected may be returned in search results. A document that is not selected will not be returned in search results, even if it otherwise satisfies the search request. 

If the criteria for the SearchFilter can be expressed as one or more search requests, you can use SelectItemsBySearch to select documents in the SearchFilter.

Indexes and Index identifiers

A search filter can cover any number of indexes. To add an index to a search filter, call addIndex() with the full path to the index. The path must be expressed exactly as it will be expressed in the search job. The AddIndex() method returns an integer that is used to identify that index when selecting and de-selecting documents for the filter. (This makes the selection and de-selection functions, which may be called thousands of times, more efficient.)

Implementation

A search filter is implemented in the dtSearch Engine using a table of bit vectors, one for each index in the filter. Each bit vector has one bit for each document in its index. A search filter for a single index with 1,000,000 documents would have 1,000,000 bits, or 125 kilobytes of data.

Group
Methods
Method 
Description 
Add an index to the filter, returning an integer that can be used to identify the index in the selection functions.  
and 
Combine this filter with another filter in a logical "AND" operation. 
Combine this filter with another filter in a logical "AND NOT" operation. 
Free memory allocated for the filter 
Compare two filters for equality 
Get number of indexes in this filter 
Get the path for an index in this filter  
Get doc ids of documents in this filter  
or 
Combine this filter with another filter in a logical "OR" operation. 
read 
Read the search filter from a disk file.  
Read a series of search filters from disk files.  
Select all of the documents in the index.  
This is the overview for the selectItems method overload. 
Set the selection state of all documents in an index that match search request.  
Select no documents in the index.  
Save the search filter to a disk file.  
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Method 
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