Install

Dependencies

If using SOLR:

pip -E ./env/ install pysolr

Download

cd ~/download/django/
wget http://github.com/downloads/toastdriven/django-haystack/django-haystack-1.0.1-final.tar.gz

Install

• Extract the source code:

  cd ~/src/
  tar xzf ~/download/django/django-haystack-1.0.1-final.tar.gz
  

• Install

Configuration

• Add haystack to installed apps in your settings.xml file:

  INSTALLED_APPS = (
      ...
      'haystack',
  

• In settings.xml, add the python import path to a file where you will keep your search configuration e.g:

  HAYSTACK_SITECONF = 'myproject.search_sites'
  

  Note: In this example, myproject is the name of the project. We create the search_sites python module in a later step).

• In settings.xml, tell Haystack we are using SOLR and set the URL e.g:

  HAYSTACK_SEARCH_ENGINE = 'solr'
  HAYSTACK_SOLR_URL = 'http://localhost:8080/solr'
  

• Create a python file, search_sites.py, in the root of the project (in the same folder as settings.xml):

  import haystack
  haystack.autodiscover()
  

Implementation

Application

• For each application where you want to index data in a model, create a search_indexes.py file in the same folder as models.py. Here is a sample file:

  import datetime
  from haystack.indexes import *
  from haystack import site
  from myapp.models import Note
  
  class NoteIndex(SearchIndex):
      text = CharField(document=True, use_template=True)
      author = CharField(model_attr='user')
      pub_date = DateTimeField(model_attr='pub_date')
  
      def get_queryset(self):
          """Used when the entire index for model is updated."""
          return Note.objects.filter(pub_date__lte=datetime.datetime.now())
  
  site.register(Note, NoteIndex)
  

  Note:

  • Every SearchIndex requires there be one (and only one) field with document=True. This indicates to both Haystack and the search engine about which field is the primary field for searching within.

  • When you choose a document=True field, it should be consistently named across all of your SearchIndex classes to avoid confusing the backend. The convention is to name this field text.

  • use_template=True is a mechanism to allow is to build the document using a data template rather than string concatenation. The template is created in the folder:

    templates/search/indexes/myapp/note_text.txt
    

    …and will look like this:

    {{ object.title }}
    {{ object.user.get_full_name }}
    {{ object.body }}
    

  • If you don’t want to use a template (possibly when creating a string field… check out the prepare_ method in Faceting…

  • The custom get_queryset method selects a subset of data to be indexed.

  …here is the models.py file (for reference):

  from django.db import models
  from django.contrib.auth.models import User
  
  class Note(models.Model):
      user = models.ForeignKey(User)
      pub_date = models.DateTimeField()
      title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
      body = models.TextField()
  
      def __unicode__(self):
          return self.title
  

Templates

• Add the following to your URL configuration:

  (r'^search/', include('haystack.urls')),
  

• Create search/search.html template:

  {% extends 'base.html' %}
  
  {% block content %}
      <h2>Search</h2>
  
      <form method="get" action=".">
          <table>
              {{ form.as_table }}
              <tr>
                  <td>&nbsp;</td>
                  <td>
                      <input type="submit" value="Search">
                  </td>
              </tr>
          </table>
  
          {% if query %}
              <h3>Results</h3>
  
              {% for result in page.object_list %}
                  <p>
                      <a href="{{ result.object.get_absolute_url }}">{{ result.object.title }}</a>
                  </p>
              {% empty %}
                  <p>No results found.</p>
              {% endfor %}
          {% else %}
              {# Show some example queries to run, maybe query syntax, something else? #}
          {% endif %}
      </form>
  {% endblock %}
  

  Note:

  • page.object_list is actually a list of SearchResult objects instead of individual models. These objects have all the data returned from that record within the search index as well as score.

  • They can also directly access the model for the result via `` result.object .  So the `` result.object.title `` uses the actual ``Note object in the database and accesses its title field.

SOLR - Schema

To generate the SOLR schema for your search models:

Generate the schema:

python manage.py build_solr_schema

Copy the output from the build_solr_schema command to your SOLR conf/schema.xml file…

Re-start SOLR (Tomcat)…

Maintenance

Read the Maintenance notes next…