PySolrQuery

A tentative lightweight API for to make Solr queries within python.

How do I use it?

There's a Solr class with handy methods.

> from Solr import Solr
> solr = Solr(host = 'localhost', appName = 'content', coreName = 'people')
> searchResults = solr.doSearch(q = 'name:John')

> for people in searchResults:
>     print people

{'name': 'John Lennon', 'profession': 'musician'}
{'name': 'John Wayne', 'profession': 'actor'}

> facetResults = solr.doFacet(q = 'name:John', field = 'profession')
> for profession, count in facetResults.iteritems():
>     print profession, count

musician 1
actor 1

Constructor parameters and Solr host URL:

The constructor assumes that the path to your Solr core is: {host}:{port}/{appName}/{coreName}/select/, where the values of host,port,appName and coreName must be passed to the Solr constructor.

If this is not your case, check the method Solr._get_base_url(). It must return the correct URL.

Query parameters as keyword arguments:

You can pass query parameters as keyword arguments:

> searchResults = solr.doSearch(q = 'name:Mary', fl = 'name, profession, age', fq = 'age)

Python doesn't accept keyword arguments with dot '.' in its name. In this case, just substitute de dot by an underscore '_':

> facetResult = solr.doFacet(q = 'name:Mary', field = 'profession', facet_mincount = 10)

Extending the Solr class:

You can easily create custom searches by extending the Solr class:

class MyCustomSearch(Solr)
    def _basic_fixed_params(self):
        base = Solr._basic_fixed_params(self)
        return base + {'defType': 'dismax', 'qf': 'name^2.0 parentsname^1.0 profession^0.5'}


solr = MyCustomSearch(host = 'localhost')
print solr.doSearch(q = 'mary doctor')

Parameters returned by the Solr._basic_fixed_params() method are made fixed over all queries and parameters returned by the Solr._required_params() method raise a RequiredParamException when not present in a call to doSearch() or doFacet().

To do list and Known issues:

• needs a proper module structure
• needs a setup.py to deal with dependencies
• needs a better way to deal with the paths in the host URL.
• needs a way to do facets in multiple fields in the same query
• needs tests

Known issues:

• It's not possible to do multiple facets in the same query right now. This stems from the use of the requests module. Query parameters are passed through a dictionary to the post method, and python dictionaries can't have two fields with the same key.

Dependencies:

• requests: just install it via sudo pip install requests