How to index the result of any instance method

Ruby Apps Ferret
1

Hi,

One of the AAF features is to be able to index results of methods, but I
haven’t seen anywhere how to do this. I have a method that returns the
full text of a file and I’d like for this to be indexed. Can anyone out
there help me out on this one?

Tom

2

Hi, Tom,

haven’t used this myself but if I understand
http://projects.jkraemer.net/acts_as_ferret/rdoc/classes/FerretMixin/Acts/ARFerret/ClassMethods.html#M000005correctly
you are able to add symbols of your instance methods to the fields
of the options hash of acts_as_ferret:

"fields:names all fields to include in the index. If not given,

all attributes of the class will be indexed. You may also give
symbols pointing to instance methods of your model here, i.e.
to retrieve and index data from a related model.
"

Regards
Jan

3

Hi!

On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 09:37:54AM +0200, Jan P. wrote:

symbols pointing to instance methods of your model here, i.e.
to retrieve and index data from a related model.
"

right, just use the method name as a symbol in the fields list:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_ferret :fields => [ :full_text, ‘title’ ]
def full_text
# return content to be indexed here
end
end

where title is a normal database backed attribute.

Cheers,
Jens

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D-01069 Dresden Fax +49 351 46766 66

4

Jens K. wrote:

Hi!

On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 09:37:54AM +0200, Jan P. wrote:

symbols pointing to instance methods of your model here, i.e.
to retrieve and index data from a related model.
"

right, just use the method name as a symbol in the fields list:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_ferret :fields => [ :full_text, ‘title’ ]
def full_text
# return content to be indexed here
end
end

where title is a normal database backed attribute.

Cheers,
Jens

–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Ferret-talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ferret-talk

Ferret-talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ferret-talk

–
webit! Gesellschaft f�r neue Medien mbH www.webit.de
Dipl.-Wirtschaftsingenieur Jens Kr�mer [email protected]
Schnorrstra�e 76 Tel +49 351 46766 0
D-01069 Dresden Fax +49 351 46766 66

Thanks Jens,

Now I’ve got the approach figured out, but I seem to be having problems
yet. It seems that my full_text method is not actually being indexed.
In fact, I’ve placed a breakpoint inside the method and it seems that
it’s never even being called. Meanwhile, Ferret still manages to update
index with every new instance of MyModel, but without the full_text
value. I also placed a breakpoint in
vendor/plugins/acts_as_ferret/rebuild_index.rb and it appears that IT is
never called when a new model instance is created. Any thoughts?

Really appreciate your help,

Tom

5

Jens K. wrote:

On Tue, May 23, 2006 at 08:42:10AM +0200, Tom wrote:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base

Now I’ve got the approach figured out, but I seem to be having problems
yet. It seems that my full_text method is not actually being indexed.
In fact, I’ve placed a breakpoint inside the method and it seems that
it’s never even being called. Meanwhile, Ferret still manages to update
index with every new instance of MyModel, but without the full_text
value. I also placed a breakpoint in
vendor/plugins/acts_as_ferret/rebuild_index.rb and it appears that IT is
never called when a new model instance is created. Any thoughts?

What version of acts_as_ferret do you use ? Could you try to upgrade
from svn ? rebuild_index.rb has been removed some time ago as it is
obsolete.

Jens

–
webit! Gesellschaft f�r neue Medien mbH www.webit.de
Dipl.-Wirtschaftsingenieur Jens Kr�mer [email protected]
Schnorrstra�e 76 Tel +49 351 46766 0
D-01069 Dresden Fax +49 351 46766 66

Okay, thanks. I’ve got it working now for simple text files. Can
anybody share any experience/opinion they have on using Ruby to process
and index/search Microsoft documents and PDFs ??? Thanks for any help.

6

On Thu, Jun 01, 2006 at 09:35:18AM +0200, Tom On wrote:

Okay, thanks. I’ve got it working now for simple text files. Can
anybody share any experience/opinion they have on using Ruby to process
and index/search Microsoft documents and PDFs ??? Thanks for any help.

In RDig I use the wvText and pdftotext to extract textual content from
word
and pdf documents. Imho there is no Ruby lib yet to do this.

Jens

–
webit! Gesellschaft für neue Medien mbH www.webit.de
Dipl.-Wirtschaftsingenieur Jens Krämer [email protected]
Schnorrstraße 76 Tel +49 351 46766 0
D-01069 Dresden Fax +49 351 46766 66

7

On 6/1/06, Jens K. [email protected] wrote:

On Thu, Jun 01, 2006 at 09:35:18AM +0200, Tom On wrote:

Okay, thanks. I’ve got it working now for simple text files. Can
anybody share any experience/opinion they have on using Ruby to process
and index/search Microsoft documents and PDFs ??? Thanks for any help.

In RDig I use the wvText and pdftotext to extract textual content from word
and pdf documents. Imho there is no Ruby lib yet to do this.

I second that. I’ve tried the Ruby pdf reader alternitives on RAA
without much luck. If anyone knows a good pdf reading opensource C
library I’d be happy to write some bindings. But I think wvText and
pdftotext are your best options right now.

8

On Tue, May 23, 2006 at 08:42:10AM +0200, Tom wrote:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base

Now I’ve got the approach figured out, but I seem to be having problems
yet. It seems that my full_text method is not actually being indexed.
In fact, I’ve placed a breakpoint inside the method and it seems that
it’s never even being called. Meanwhile, Ferret still manages to update
index with every new instance of MyModel, but without the full_text
value. I also placed a breakpoint in
vendor/plugins/acts_as_ferret/rebuild_index.rb and it appears that IT is
never called when a new model instance is created. Any thoughts?

What version of acts_as_ferret do you use ? Could you try to upgrade
from svn ? rebuild_index.rb has been removed some time ago as it is
obsolete.

Jens

–
webit! Gesellschaft für neue Medien mbH www.webit.de
Dipl.-Wirtschaftsingenieur Jens Krämer [email protected]
Schnorrstraße 76 Tel +49 351 46766 0
D-01069 Dresden Fax +49 351 46766 66