# FastRI 0.2.0: full-text searching, smarter search strategies **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [November 15, 2006, 1:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030 "2006-11-15T13:11:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 1:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/1 "2006-11-15T13:11:43Z")
FastRI is an alternative to the ri command-line tool. It is _much_ faster, and also allows you to offer RI lookup services over DRb. FastRI is smarter than ri, and can find classes anywhere in the hierarchy without specifying the “full path”. FastRI can perform full-text searching. Its RubyGems support is better than ri’s, and it knows which gem a method/class definition came from. # Getting it Additional information, tarballs… at [eigenclass.org](http://eigenclass.org/hiki.rb?fastri) FastRI can be installed with RubyGems: gem install fastri (if you get an old version/a 404 error, please allow some time after the release until the package propagates to the RubyForge mirrors). Please read below for an important note regarding the RubyGems packages. # Changes since version 0.1.1 (2006-11-10) ## Features - fri can do full-text search (-S, --full-text); try fri -S byte order - fri can now determine where a method actually came from for core classes e.g. fri File.inject → docs for Enumerable#inject - you can specify which ports the DRb services must bind to: fastri-server -s 192.168.1.2:54321 fri -s 192.168.1.2:12345 - new search methods: “anywhere” (a) and “anywhere, case-indep.” (A) # Acknowledgements Tomasz W. - contributed the code that allows fri to find a method in the ancestors for core classes # Usage There are two parts to FastRI: - the server: fastri-server - the client: fri FastRI uses a Rinda Ring to allow servers to be discovered automatically without needing to indicate the DRb URIs manually. It can work across machines if you make sure the ring server is bound to the correct interface, and the ACL permissions are correct. # Examples $ fastri-server (creates the index on the first run, blocks) ## Later, (times measured with a cold cache): $ time ruby bin/fri -f plain Array#fetch Array#fetch array.fetch(index) → obj […] real 0m0.287s (real 0m0.127s with a hot cache) user 0m0.048s sys 0m0.008s ## Compare to: $ time ri -T -f plain Array#fetch Array#fetch […] real 0m10.136s (real ~ 1.5s with a hot cache) user 0m1.140s sys 0m0.464s This illustrates FastRI’s ability to locate classes deep in the class hierarchy: $ fri Base ------------------------------------------------------ Multiple choices: ``` ActionMailer::Base, ActionView::Base, ActionWebService::API::Base, ActionWebService::Base, ActionWebService::Client::Base, ActiveRecord::Base, MapReduce::ActiveRecord::Base, RSS::Maker::Base, Scruffy::Components::Base, Scruffy::Formatters::Base, Scruffy::Layers::Base, Scruffy::Renderers::Base, Scruffy::Themes::Base ``` $ fri Themes::Base ------------------------------------------- Class: Scruffy::Themes::Base Scruffy::Themes::Base Author: Brasten S. ``` Date: August 14th, 2006 ``` Compare to $ ri Themes::Base … several seconds later … Nothing known about Themes::Base # A small note about RubyGems + FastRI. RubyGems adds a noticeable overhead to fri, making it run slower than if you installed it directly from the tarball with setup.rb. Compare the execution time when installed with RubyGems: $ time fri -f plain String \> /dev/null real 0m0.385s user 0m0.244s sys 0m0.036s to the time fri actually takes to run, without the overhead introduced by RubyGems: $ time ruby bin/fri -f plain String \> /dev/null real 0m0.088s user 0m0.040s sys 0m0.008s If you care about those extra 300ms (and there are situations where they will matter, e.g. when using fri for method completion), get FastRI from the tarballs. # License FastRI is licensed under the same terms as Ruby. See LICENSE. # Feedback Bug reports, patches, comments… are appreciated. You can contact the author via [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid). Please add “fastri” to the subject in order to bypass the spam filters. ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 4:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/2 "2006-11-16T16:14:20Z")
I like fastri 🙂 Did you implement a way to tell fri about the default pager it should use? On the 0.1.1 announcement thread you said you probably would have done this in 0.2.0. I tried by setting a PAGER envvar but it didn’t work (many unix tools check for that envvar, “PAGER=cat man man” is just an example). ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/3 "2006-11-16T18:50:54Z")
On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 12:12:52AM +0900, Gabriele M. wrote: > I like fastri 🙂 🙂 > Did you implement a way to tell fri about the default pager it should use? > On the 0.1.1 announcement thread you said you probably would have done this > in 0.2.0. I tried by setting a PAGER envvar but it didn’t work (many unix > tools check for that envvar, “PAGER=cat man man” is just an example). Sorry, it’s not in 0.2.0, but you can find it in HEAD; just get [http://eigenclass.org/repos/fastri/head/bin/fri](http://eigenclass.org/repos/fastri/head/bin/fri) $ fri -h Usage: fri [options] -s, --bind ADDR Bind to ADDR for incoming DRb connections. (default: 127.0.0.1) -O, --order ORDER Specify lookup order. (default: eEnNpPxX) Uppercase: case-indep. e:exact n:nested p:partial (completion) x:nested and partial a:match method name anywhere –show-matches Only show matching entries. -S, --full-text Perform full-text search. -F, --full-text-dir DIR Use full-text index in DIR (default: /home/batsman/.fastri-fulltext) -f, --format FMT Format to use when displaying output: ansi, plain (default: ansi) -P, --[no-]pager Use pager. (default: don’t) –pager-cmd PAGER Use pager PAGER. (default: don’t) -w, --width WIDTH Set the width of the output. -h, --help Show this help message fri will use a pager by default in full-text search mode, (either the one given to --pager-cmd, ENV[“PAGER”], “less”, “more” or “pager”, in that order) but _not_ in normal mode, unless you ask for it with -P. You can alias fri=“fri -P” to always use a pager, and it will honor the PAGER env. variable. I might as well implement option parsing for ENV[“FRI\_OPTIONS”]. ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 3:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/4 "2006-11-17T03:10:50Z")
:From =\> “Mauricio Julio Fernández Pradier” # On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 12:12:52AM +0900, Gabriele M. wrote: # \> I like fastri 🙂 # 🙂 Hi Mauricio, 1. it seems that fri does not implem multiple queries yet? eg ## C:\temp\>fri upcase downcase ---------------------------------------------------------- String#upcase str.upcase =\> new\_str ``` Returns a copy of _str_ with all lowercase letters replaced with their uppercase counterparts. The operation is locale insensitive---only characters ``a'' to ``z'' are affected. "hEllO".upcase #=> "HELLO" ``` C:\temp\> yet ## C:\temp\>ri -f plain -T upcase downcase ---------------------------------------------------------- String#upcase str.upcase =\> new\_str ``` Returns a copy of _str_ with all lowercase letters replaced with their uppercase counterparts. The operation is locale insensitive---only characters ``a'' to ``z'' are affected. "hEllO".upcase #=> "HELLO" ``` ## -------------------------------------------------------- String#downcase str.downcase =\> new\_str ``` Returns a copy of _str_ with all uppercase letters replaced with their lowercase counterparts. The operation is locale insensitive---only characters ``A'' to ``Z'' are affected. "hEllO".downcase #=> "hello" ``` 1. also, can we allow a -T for fri (since some do like pager while others like do not --sometimes. i prefer piping and teeing and all output in one 🙂 C:\temp\>fri -f plain -T upcase downcase c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:1381:in `complete’: invalid option: -T (OptionParser::InvalidOption) 1. it would be nice if queries (if possible) may return related topics. eg, something like, “Related methods: capitalize, downcase, upcase, trim, ltrim, etc…”. This is very good for noobies like me. this may be quite a hard work since we may need an index… thanks for fri. it really is fast even on mswindows. kind regards -botp ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/5 "2006-11-21T16:34:24Z")
Hi, remote access doesn’t work for me. Anyone got this up an running? I did something like: fastri-server -a 192.168.100.0/24 -s 192.168.100.163 Looking for Ring server… No Ring server found, starting my own. $ fastri-server 0.0.1 (FastRI 0.2.0) listening on druby://192.168.100.163:35800 ACL: deny all allow 127.0.0.1 allow 192.168.100.0/24 Local access works just fine, but from remote I got: $ fri -s 192.168.100.163 Array Couldn’t initialize DRb and locate the Ring server. Any ideas? Regards Thomas ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 12:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/6 "2006-11-19T00:41:40Z")
On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 11:08:56AM +0900, Peña, Botp wrote: > 1. it seems that fri does not implem multiple queries yet? eg oh, I’d never used that with ri (actually, I didn’t use ri that much, for the reason you know) > 1. also, can we allow a -T for fri (since some do like pager while others > like do not --sometimes. i prefer piping and teeing and all output in one 🙂 In HEAD, you have $ fri -h … -P, --[no-]pager Use pager. (default: don’t) –pager-cmd PAGER Use pager PAGER. (default: don’t) By default, it doesn’t use a pager, unless you are doing full-text searches. > 1. it would be nice if queries (if possible) may return related topics. eg, > something like, “Related methods: capitalize, downcase, upcase, trim, ltrim, > etc…”. Yes, I’m thinking about the best way to achieve this; the obvious candidate is latent semantic indexing. > This is very good for noobies like me. this may be quite a hard work since > we may need an index… You cannot keep playing the newbie card for years 😉 … you’ve been around since Jan 2001 at least! (I found your 1st post, according to blade, in RubyConf’s foundational thread [ruby-talk:9868]!) ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/7 "2006-11-21T16:55:48Z")
Well on a cisco router, setting up an ACL like that would prevent anyone from accessing it because it would hit the first rule (deny all) and then stop. Now, I’m a Ruby newbie, and I’ve never tried what you’re trying, but that’s the first thing that I would check. Can you put the deny all at the end of the ACL list? ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/8 "2006-11-21T16:55:49Z")
On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 12:34:29AM +0900, Thomas N. wrote: > remote access doesn’t work for me. Anyone got this up an running? I did > something like: > > fastri-server -a 192.168.100.0/24 -s 192.168.100.163 > ==================== > $ fri -s 192.168.100.163 Array > ================= > Couldn’t initialize DRb and locate the Ring server. The address given to fri -s ADDR is not the address of the server (that one is autodiscovered using the Ring), but the address the local DRb service must bind to (in short, fri also exports a DRb service that will be used by the remote fastri-server to tell fri where it is). So, if your server is 192.168.100.163 and your client is running on 192.168.100.164, you’d have to do (in 192.168.100.163) $ fastri-server -a 192.168.100.0/24 -s 192.168.100.163 (in 192.168.100.164) $ fri -s 192.168.100.164 Array or $ export FASTRI\_ADDR=192.168.100.164 $ fri Array I’m revisiting that code to see if I can make ‘fri Array’ work without specifying the local address, but for the time being the above should work. ---
**Author:** ![tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@tulkas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tulkas)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fastri-0-2-0-full-text-searching-smarter-search-strategies/76030/9 "2006-11-21T17:17:16Z")
Thx a lot. It works perfectly that way. It’s almost sort of RTFM, but I misunderstood the sentence “Note that FASTRI\_ADDR is the _local_ address: the server will be discovered automatically.” Regards, Thomas