1================================================================================
2Introducing the Solr PHP Extension
3================================================================================
4The Solr extension is an extremely fast, light-weight, feature-rich library that
5allows PHP developers to communicate effectively with Solr server instances.
6
7There are tools to add documents and make updates to the solr server.
8
9It also contains tools that allows you to build advanced queries to the server
10when searching for documents.
11
12There are also special objects that simplifies the sending of name-value requests
13to the server. This includes the SolrParams class and all its child classes.
14
15The SolrClient object allows one to communicate with Solr containers that are
16behind proxy servers or that require HTTP Authentication to proceed.
17
18The SolrClient constructor accepts options such as
19http authentication username and passwor, proxy server name, port, login and
20passwords etc.
21
22Using an advanced http client like libcurl allows us to leverage the features
23available with the library. We can reuse the HTTP connections without having
24to create a separate one for each request.
25
26================================================================================
27How to Install
28================================================================================
29
30Please refer to the README.INSTALLATION file.
31
32================================================================================
33Magic Methods and Interfaces Implemented
34================================================================================
35
36SolrDocument implements the following interfaces.
37
38(1) ArrayAccess  - to access the fields as array keys using field names.
39(2) Iterator	 - to iterate over the document fields using foreach()
40(3) Serializable - provides custom serialization of the object.
41
42SolrDocument also contains the __get and __set magic methods which allows developers
43to access the fields directly. When setting fields, if the field already
44has a value the new value will be appended to the list of values for that field.
45
46Each field is a SolrDocumentField object with the following public properties :
47
48(a) name - a string with name of the field.
49(b) boost - a double representing the boost value of the field (intentionally empty)
50(c) values - an array of all the field values as strings.
51
52Custom Serialization
53
54string SolrDocument::serialize(void) returns an XML document representing a
55SolrDocument as shown below :
56
57<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
58<solr_document>
59  <fields>
60    <field name="id">
61      <field_value>A0F43D</field_value>
62    </field>
63    <field name="name">
64      <field_value>Israel Ekpo</field_value>
65    </field>
66    <field name="email">
67      <field_value>Israel.Ekpo@israel.ekpo.com</field_value>
68    </field>
69    <field name="skills">
70      <field_value>Reading</field_value>
71      <field_value>Writing</field_value>
72      <field_value>Soccer</field_value>
73      <field_value>Teaching</field_value>
74    </field>
75    <field name="languages">
76      <field_value>Inglés</field_value>
77      <field_value>Espanól</field_value>
78    </field>
79  </fields>
80</solr_document>
81
82Here is a complete example of a serialized SolrDocument object:
83
84C:12:"SolrDocument":679:{<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
85<solr_document>
86  <fields>
87    <field name="id">
88      <field_value>A0F43D</field_value>
89    </field>
90    <field name="name">
91      <field_value>Israel Ekpo</field_value>
92    </field>
93    <field name="email">
94      <field_value>Israel.Ekpo@israel.ekpo.com</field_value>
95    </field>
96    <field name="skills">
97      <field_value>Reading</field_value>
98      <field_value>Writing</field_value>
99      <field_value>Soccer</field_value>
100      <field_value>Teaching</field_value>
101    </field>
102    <field name="languages">
103      <field_value>Inglés</field_value>
104      <field_value>Espanól</field_value>
105    </field>
106  </fields>
107</solr_document>
108}
109
110One of the items on my todo list is to create a response writer to return
111serialized SolrDocument objects instead of document arrays.
112
113SolrDocument::unserialize(string $serialized) accepts an XML document
114representing the SolrDocument object. It will the bring the object back to live.
115
116The SolrDocument class also has the method SolrDocument::getInputDocument() to
117allow one do get the SolrInputDocument version of a SolrDocument instance.
118
119This method may be helpful if one needs to resubmit the document to the server to
120updates.
121
122The Solr extension has the SolrQuery object (a child of SolrParams) that enables
123the developer to send custom advanced name-value requests to the solr server.
124
125The SolrQuery object can also be serialized and reused later, which makes it very
126helpful to saving the state of the application across multiple requests. This may be
127very useful in cases such as facet browsing where additional parameters may need to be
128added to the current object or removed from it to get the desired results without
129having to start over from scratch.
130
131================================================================================
132Parsing of XML Responses from the Solr Server
133================================================================================
134XML responses from the solr server are expected to be formatted using version 2.2
135These xml documents are parsed into serialized php code and returned as
136read-only SolrObject instances whose properties can also be accessed as array
137keys in addition to being accessible directly via the object->member notation.
138
139Having the properties accessible via object[member] notation is helpful in cases
140where the property name is not valid (contains dots and other characters not
141legal in php.
142
143================================================================================
144How to Report Bugs
145================================================================================
146
147Please report bugs to http://bugs.php.net
148
149If you experience a crash due to a segmentation fault, please follow the instructions on the link below
150to get a gdb backtrace and then submit the trace in your bug report as well
151
152http://bugs.php.net/bugs-generating-backtrace.php
153
154Thank you for using PHP
155