# List of terms matched by a query (and their position/offset)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/list-of-terms-matched-by-a-query-and-their-position-offset/152229>\
**Category:** Ferret\
**Created:** [October 31, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/list-of-terms-matched-by-a-query-and-their-position-offset/152229 "2008-10-31T16:00:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Karl\_Meisterheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a9a28c/32.png) [@Karl\_Meisterheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Karl_Meisterheim)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/list-of-terms-matched-by-a-query-and-their-position-offset/152229/1 "2008-10-31T16:00:37Z")

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Hi Jens,

Thanks for the reply.

What you say makes sense, but I’m hoping for a simpler implementation.  
I guess it boils down to this:  
When I conduct a search in ferret / AAF, I get an array of documents  
back. Somehow, the highlight method knows where the terms that were  
matched by the search exist in those documents / field. Is there  
anyway that I can get that information? I looked through the API and  
even the source and unfortunately, couldn’t quite grok how it was  
happening.

This will allow me to do the following, I can chunk together several  
distinct pieces of information into one field for the purpose of  
indexing. Then, if I know which terms were matched and their position  
in the field, I can use that information to figure out which piece of  
information in that single field it came from.

For example, if my document has six figures, I take the caption text  
of those six figures and concatenate them all together and index them  
in one field, captions. Then, when the document comes back as a  
match, if I knew that the term “empire” matched whatever search query  
was used, and that the offset was 100 in my captions field, I could  
piece together which of the original illustrations it belongs to.  
Again, this is all necessary because I don’t know in advance how many  
figures a given document may contain.

I know this sounds overly complicated, but I think it’s easier than  
creating a new model, a separate index and then having to search  
multiple times etc.

Does this make sense, or am I going at this completely wrong?

Thank you,

-km