Search document collections with GroupDocs.Search Leave feedback
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GroupDocs.Search is the one API in the suite that works on a collection rather than a single file. You build an index over a folder of documents once, then query it as often as you like — the index does the reading, so queries stay fast no matter how large the corpus grows.
That makes it a two-phase API: index, then search. The entry point is Index, not a “searcher”.
NoteThe code on this page is complete and ready to run against GroupDocs.Total for Node.js via Java. Downloadable output samples for these examples are being added — in the meantime, the GroupDocs.Search for Node.js via Java documentation carries the full set of runnable examples.
The index lives in a folder of its own, separate from the documents. add reads a folder of documents into it; search queries what has been indexed.
import { Index } from '@groupdocs/groupdocs.total';
import { basename } from 'path';
// The index is a folder the library owns; keep it out of your documents folder
const index = new Index('search-build-index/index');
// Index every supported document in the folder
index.add('archive');
const result = index.search('throughput');
console.log('Documents found: ' + result.getDocumentCount());
console.log('Total occurrences: ' + result.getOccurrenceCount());
for (let i = 0; i < result.getDocumentCount(); i++) {
const document = result.getFoundDocument(i);
// getFilePath() is absolute; the file name is the useful part here
const fileName = basename(document.getDocumentInfo().getFilePath());
console.log(' ' + fileName + ' (' + document.getOccurrenceCount() + ' occurrences)');
}
index.close();
This example indexes the archive folder — three working documents from the engagement: discovery-findings.docx, steering-minutes.docx and phase-two-proposal.pdf. Put them in a folder named archive next to your program.
Exact matching fails on scanned documents and typos. Fuzzy search accepts a similarity level — how many character edits away a word may be and still count as a hit.
import { Index } from '@groupdocs/groupdocs.total';
import java from 'java';
const SearchOptions = java.import('com.groupdocs.search.options.SearchOptions');
const TableDiscreteFunction = java.import('com.groupdocs.search.options.TableDiscreteFunction');
const index = new Index('search-fuzzy/index');
index.add('archive');
const options = new SearchOptions();
options.getFuzzySearch().setEnabled(true);
options.getFuzzySearch().setFuzzyAlgorithm(new TableDiscreteFunction(3));
// Matches "throughput" even when spelled "througput" or "throughtput"
const result = index.search('throughput', options);
console.log('Documents found: ' + result.getDocumentCount());
console.log('Total occurrences: ' + result.getOccurrenceCount());
index.close();
This example indexes the archive folder — three working documents from the engagement: discovery-findings.docx, steering-minutes.docx and phase-two-proposal.pdf. Put them in a folder named archive next to your program.
Query text supports AND, OR and NOT, so you can express the same conditions a user would type into a search box. All three archived documents mention throughput; only the phase-two proposal mentions a forecast, so this query returns the other two.
import { Index } from '@groupdocs/groupdocs.total';
import { basename } from 'path';
const index = new Index('search-boolean/index');
index.add('archive');
const result = index.search('throughput AND NOT forecast');
console.log('Documents found: ' + result.getDocumentCount());
for (let i = 0; i < result.getDocumentCount(); i++) {
const document = result.getFoundDocument(i);
console.log(' ' + basename(document.getDocumentInfo().getFilePath()));
}
index.close();
This example indexes the archive folder — three working documents from the engagement: discovery-findings.docx, steering-minutes.docx and phase-two-proposal.pdf. Put them in a folder named archive next to your program.
NoteAn index is durable. PointIndexat an existing index folder and it reopens what is already there rather than rebuilding — calladdagain only when documents change, andupdateto refresh ones that were modified.
GroupDocs.Search also offers phrase, wildcard, regex, faceted and date-range queries, highlights matches in the source document, indexes asynchronously with progress events, runs OCR over scanned pages, supports synonyms, homophones and stop words, and can distribute an index across a search network.
- GroupDocs.Search for Node.js via Java documentation — the full product guide
- Supported file formats
- API reference
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