thinking sphinx

Quickstart

Okay, here’s the brief explanation of how to set up Thinking Sphinx.

Install Sphinx

Go grab the files you need from the Sphinx site.

Install Thinking Sphinx

script/plugin install
  git://github.com/freelancing-god/thinking-sphinx.git

If you’re not on edge, use the following:

git clone git://github.com/freelancing-god/thinking-sphinx.git
  vendor/plugins/thinking-sphinx

Once you’ve got a full clone, you can switch to a specific tag or branch:

git checkout v0.9.5

If you’re not using git, just download the tarball from the GitHub site.

Set up your indexes

Say you have an Article model, you might want to do something like the following – adapt to taste.

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  # ...

  define_index do
    indexes subject, :sortable => true
    indexes content
    indexes author.name, :as => :author, :sortable => true

    has author_id, created_at, updated_at
  end

  # ...
end

Index your data

Run the thinking_sphinx:index rake task.

Fire up Sphinx

Run the thinking_sphinx:start rake task.

Get Searching!

Again with an Article model:

Article.search "topical issue" 
Article.search "something", :order => :created_at, :sort_mode => :desc
Article.search "everything", :conditions => {:author_id => 5}
Article.search :conditions => {:subject => "Sphinx"}

And that’s pretty much it – for more detail, check out the usage page.

Pat Allan, 2008
Theme extended from Paul Battley