install: npm install express-search

express-search

A beautifully bootstrapped elasticsearch search middleware for express v4.x.

Allows you to do searches like Pictures of "Cute Puppies" Or Recipies by @MarthaStewart

For example, if you want searches that MUST contain the phrase "Puppies" and you'd prefer them to be wearing hats: "Puppies" wearing hats would return results containing documents that contain "puppies", and try to find documents where the puppies are wearing hats.

If you want to find a person/place you can use mention style tags: @hansolo will return documents where hansolo is mentioned

If you want to search only documents with certain tags you can use hash tags in your search: #music top 10 will return documents with the tag "music, and look for a "top 10" document

You can string them together to make concise yet powerful searches: #music by @paulsimmon "You Can Call Me Al" Will try to find documents tagged "music", where "paulsimmon" is mentioned, and the phrase "You Can Call Me Al" is found.

Setting Up an End Point

Set up is super simple. You just have to:

Provide connection settings for ElasticSearch.
Set Index and Type to search.
Configure pagination(default page size).
Configure Fields to search
- Fields for general search
- Fields for tag serach
- Fields for mentions
Fields to return
Configure default sorting(optional)
- Field to sort by
- Sort order(ascending/descending)

Setup connection settings:

var expressSearch=require('express-search');
var express=require('express');

var app=express();

var config={
    'hosts':['localhost:9200']
    //'log':'trace' //handy for debugging
}

expressSearch.connect(configs);

Now you can use the expressSearch object to create multiple routes:

var mySearch={
   index: "myIndex",
   type: "someType",
   tags: ['tags','twitter.tags'], //fields for tag search
   mentions: ['authors','editors'], //fields for mention search
   fields: ['title','description'], //fields for general search
   projection: ['title','description','authors','editors','tags'], //fields to return in results. ['*'] for all fields
   pageSize: 10, //default page size
   sort: 'desc',
   sortBy: 'createDate'
};

app.use('/api/search/',expressSearch.setup(mySearch));

Now to use it:

curl http://localhost/api/search?q=music

You can use the expressSearch object to setup as many search endpoints are you desire.

Using the end point

Express-Search generates a GET end point at whichever route you configure.

There are several parameters you can pass via query string:

q (String)
- the text to search(including mentions/tags/phrases)
page(Number)
- page number starting from 0
pageSize(Number)
- Overwrite default page size
sort(String)
- Either "asc" or "desc"
- Overwrites default
sortBy(String)
- Set field to sort by
- Overwrites default

Batteries Not Included!

Express-Search will not index documents for you! You should either index them yourself or use a river plugin. This plugin will not handle configuring a mapping for your documents. This plugin simply handles search.

tsturzl/express-search

express-search

Setting Up an End Point

Using the end point

Batteries Not Included!