FreeWAIS-sf

freeWAIS Documentation

The majority of freeWAIS documents will be made available by WAIS, WWW, and Gopher. Try the CNIDR WWW server (http://cnidr.org/welcome.html) for the latest documents. Now that we have some moderately stable (although certainly not bug-free) code, we will be spending a bit of time on installation documents, etc.

Your comments are welcome. Please send them to freewais@cnidr.org.

Sample SCO implementation scripts and a README.SCO are available. The sample SCO implementation scripts are in the source directory /skunkware/osr5/CD-ROM/src/Tools/freeWAIS-sf-1.1 and are called indexsfftp.sh, indexsfhtml.sh and kidsf1.1.pl.

What follows is taken from the freeWAIS-sf README from the source directory.



                             FreeWAIS-sf*


                            Ulrich Pfeifer

                              Tung Huynhz

                          University of Dortmund

                         Lehrstuhl Informatik  VI

                           D-44221 Dortmund


                           January 10, 1995



                               Abstract

  FreeWAIS-sf1  is an extension of the freeWAIS software provided by the the
  Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR)2 .
  The SF suf#x in the software name stands for "structured3  #elds," an indexing
  and search feature which distinguishes this software from its predecessors.
  It is based on the  version 0.2024 of this software but includes and enhances 
  much of what  freeWAIS-0.35 contains.
  Major extensions of FreeWAIS-sf include:

  o  Introduction of text, date, and numeric #eld structures within a document,
     which allows a document to be indexed using potentially overlapping #elds.

  o  Support for complex Boolean searches (a query parser is integrated in the
     server).

  o  Stemming and phonetic coding may be switched on and off for each indivi-
     dual #eld.

  o  De#nition of document format and layout of the headlines are now con#-
     gurable by a new speci#cation language based on regular expressions.  No
     C-code must be written to index new document types.

  o  Installation procedure now just requires running a sh script and answering
     simple questions. The script is generated using the GNU  autoconf6 utility.
     No Make#le sets for individual systems are necessary. For development pur-
     poses, additional Imake#les are provided since the Make#les do not contain
     dependencies

  o  Support for country speci#c character sets (8-Bit)

  o  Lots of bug #xes.

  All changes are restricted to the indexer and server to allow existing 
  clients to query FreeWAIS-sf databases.  Document types contained in the 
  original distribution remain intact.  You can use FreeWAIS-sf as you would 
  use original freeWAIS or take advantage of its enhanced features.

  ________________________________________________*
  You can get a  Postscript Versionyof this document.
  email: pfeifer,huynh1@ls6.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
  ftp://ls6-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/pub/wais/freeWAIS-sf-1.1/freeWAIS-sf-1.1.tgz
  http://cnidr.org/welcome.html
  Histoically the #s# meant #soundex#
  ftp://nic.switch.ch/mirror/wais/servers/freeWAIS/freeWAIS-0.202.tar.Z
  ftp://ftp.bio.indiana.edu/util/wais/freeWAIS-0.3.tar.gz
  ftp://hpcsos.col.hp.com/mirrors/.hpib0/gnu/autoconf-1.10.tar.gz


1      Supported Systems


FreeWAIS-sf is known to compile cleanly on many different UNIX platforms, 
particularly using the GNU C compiler. The known platforms include:


OS                 Version        Hardware          Compiler
____________________________________________
A/UX              3.1                mc68040            gcc  2.5.7
AIX                2                    0000001964      cc
AIX                2                    0000008314      cc
AIX                2                    0000024535      cc
AIX                2                    000003085C      cc
AIX                2                    0000052366      cc
AIX                2                    0000056118      cc
AIX                2                    0000061138      cc
AIX                2                    0000080931      cc
AIX                2                    0000091446      cc
AIX                2                    0000195011      cc
AIX                2                    0000201518      cc
AIX                2                    0000261834      cc
AIX                2                    0000298037      cc
AIX                2                    0000334735      cc
AIX                2                    0000420476      cc
AIX                2                    0000603735      cc
AIX                2                    0000610646      cc
AIX                2                    0000826246      cc
AIX                2                    0000840341      cc
AIX                2                    0002048547      cc
AIX                2                    0003809731      cc
BSD/386        1.0                i386                  gcc
BSD/386        1.1                i386                  gcc
FreeBSD        1.1.5(RELE  i386                  gcc
FreeBSD        1.1.5.1(RE  i386                  gcc
HP-UX            A.09.00        9000/822          gcc  2.5.6
HP-UX            A.09.01        9000/720          gcc  2.5.8
HP-UX            A.09.01        9000/755          gcc  2.5.8
HP-UX            A.09.04        9000/816          gcc  2.5.8
HP-UX            A.09.04        9000/887          gcc  2.3.3
HP-UX            A.09.05        9000/715          cc
IRIX              4.0.5F          IP20                  gcc  2.5.2
IRIX              5.2                IP19                  cc
IRIX              5.2                IP22                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.0.8            i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.0.9            i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.18          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.18          i586                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.33          i486                  gcc  2.5.7
Linux            1.1.45          i486                  gcc  2.6.0
Linux            1.1.47          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.49          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.50          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.51          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.52          i486                  gcc  2.6.0
Linux            1.1.55          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.57          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.59          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.60          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.61          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.62          i486                  gcc  2.5.7
Linux            1.1.64          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.65          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
Linux            1.1.70          i486                  gcc  2.5.8
OSF1              V2.0              alpha                cc
OSF1              V2.0              alpha                gcc  2.5.4
OSF1              V2.1              alpha                cc
OSF1              V2.1              alpha                gcc  2.5.8
OSF1              V2.1              alpha                gcc  2.6.0
OSF1              V3.0              alpha                cc
SCO OpenServer 5 3.2.v5           i486                cc
SunOS            4.1.1            sun4c                cc
SunOS            4.1.1            sun4c                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.1            sun4c                gcc  2.6.1
SunOS            4.1.1-JL      sun4c                gcc  2.6.2
SunOS            4.1.2            sun4                  cc
SunOS            4.1.2            sun4                  gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.2            sun4c                cc
SunOS            4.1.2            sun4c                gcc  2.2.2
SunOS            4.1.2            sun4c                gcc  2.4.2
SunOS            4.1.2            sun4c                gcc  2.4.5
SunOS            4.1.2            sun4c                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4                  gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4c                cc
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4c                gcc  2.3.3
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4c                gcc  2.5.5
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4c                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                acc
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                cc
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                gcc  2.3.2
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                gcc  2.3.3
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                gcc  2.5.6
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                gcc  2.5.7
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3            sun4m                gcc  2.6.1
SunOS            4.1.3-JL      sun4c                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3C          sun4m                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3_Axil  sun4m                gcc  2.6.0
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4c                gcc  2.4.5
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4c                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4m                cc
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4m                gcc
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4m                gcc  2.4.2
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4m                gcc  2.5.7
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4m                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            4.1.3_U1      sun4m                gcc  2.6.0
SunOS            5.2                sun4c                gcc  2.5.6
SunOS            5.2                sun4m                gcc  2.5.6
SunOS            5.3                sun4c                gcc  2.5.6
SunOS            5.3                sun4c                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            5.3                sun4d                gcc  2.4.5
SunOS            5.3                sun4d                gcc  2.5.6
SunOS            5.3                sun4d                gcc  2.5.7
SunOS            5.3                sun4d                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                acc
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                gcc
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                gcc  2.4.5
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                gcc  2.5.6
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                gcc  2.5.7
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                gcc  2.5.8
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                gcc  2.6.0
SunOS            5.3                sun4m                gcc  2.6.1
SunOS            5.4                i86pc                gcc  2.5.8
ULTRIX          4.2                RISC                  gcc  2.5.6
ULTRIX          4.3                RISC                  gcc  2.5.6
ULTRIX          4.3                RISC                  gcc  2.5.8
ULTRIX          4.3                RISC                  gcc  2.6.1
ULTRIX          4.4                RISC                  gcc  2.6.3
dgux              5.4R2.10      AViiON              gcc
dgux              5.4R2.10      AViiON              gcc  2.4.1


This is not an exhaustive list of supported platforms but represents those 
systems reported to the authors.  If you have ported FreeWAIS-sf to an 
additional platform, please provide the name, OS number, and compiler used 
to the authors for inclusion in updated release notes.



2      History


Development of FreeWAIS-sf was begun in Summer 1993 as bug #xes for 
version 0.202 of the CNIDR distribution.  These #xes included boolean 
operators, partial match search and phonetic indexing.  We mailed the #xes 
to CNIDR but received no acknowledgement.  We decided to redesign the server 
to parse the queries since we felt that boolean operations cannot be performed 
correctly without ensuring that the query conforms to a syntax.  At the same 
time we felt that adding C-code for indexing new document formats is too much
to require of most data or system system administrators.  We also saw a need to 
split up documents into a number of different #elds with possibly different 
indexing methods.

Since  feedback  from  CNIDR  was  still  missing  in  February  1994,  we  
released  our  #rst version called freeWAIS-0.2-sf-alpha.tar.gz. This #rst 
version used Imake#les for installation and was successfully compiled on many 
systems. Due to #xes to installation code and numerous bug #xes 8 subsequent 
versions (through freeWAIS-0.2-sf09-- alpha.tar.gz) were released.
Since  this  last  alpha  version  contained  most  of  the  features  we  want
to  implement,  we generated the #rst beta version. Many people, (namely running
AIX and DG/UX systems) had no working imake on their machines, we added a 
con#gure script generated by autoconf for  the  installation  procedure.   
This  script  generates  templates  containing  system  and installation 
information.  Simple make#les are thereby generated which allow compilation
and installation of FreeWAIS-sf on a great variety of systems.  See the list 
of supported systems in Section 1. This Make#les do not contain dependencies 
of the generated #les. To recompile after changes, run make  clean then make  
all or use Make#les generated by imake. The last beta version was  
freeWAIS-0.2-sf-beta-05.tar.gz7 At this time we decided not to wait for CNIDR, 
which seems mainly concerned with the Z39.50 Version 38  de#nition and 
differentiate this version from the CNIDR products by
________________________________________________7
    8ftp://ls6-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/pub/wais/beta-05/freeWAIS-0.2-sf-beta-05.tar.gz
     http://www.research.att.com/ wald/z3950.html

dropping the -0.2- in the name.
During July, August and September we removed some bugs in memory handling. Purify is
now completely happy with waisindex, waissearch and waisserver.  For more
information on some minor changes, look at sections 2.3 to 2.9.
A couple of beta testers spent their time for porting to other systems.  From all the people
helped us with comments, suggestions and patches (63 netters!), we would like to mention
the following (which had a really hard time):

  Eric Hagberg 
  Steve Hsieh 
  Douglas D. Nebert 
  Jean-Philippe Martin-Flatin 

Thank you all!
After that we be released


                                            freeWAIS-sf-1.1


in September 1994.



Releases


2.1      1.1

Patches 1-9 for 1.0 are integrated.  Also ctypes are faster now.  Added #eld description to
the *.src #les.


patch001       Scandir



Fixes a problem with waisindex. Indexing a database the #rst time causes core dump
on some systems because the return value of scandir was not checked.

patch002       X11R6


Makes the x client compile with X11R6.

patch003       waisserver



Adds a forgotten f#ush which caused problems on some systems.

patch004       xwais



Fixes an "one-off" bug in qcommands.c.

patch005       server security



when the server accepted a connection from a client, the host_name and host_address
variables were left as empty strings (and so never matched the entries in theDATA_SEC
#le)! These need to be reset for each new client connection, which is what the patch
does.

patch006       long headlines



Fixes a bug regarding long headlines.  This bug prevents long headlines from being
returned using waisq, waissearch, etc.


patch007       line numbers for format #le parsing



Due to incompatibilities of #ex, the fmt #le parser always complains about syntax
errors in line 0. This patch #xes this problem - you now will get the real line number,
where the error occurred.

patch008       unreadable #les



Indexing with the '-r' option caused core dumps when encountering an unreadble
#le.  Also encountering already indexed #les was fatal.  The patch solves this.  A
message is printed in both cases.

patch009       date in headline



The date format for the headline did not work.  This patch solves most of the known
problems with this.



2.2      1.0

Jae W. Chang wrote in  his article in comp.infosystems.wais9 : What happens is that scandir
is  searching  for  #les  of  the  form  field_..   If  it  exists,  then  they  are
removed since the user speci#ed a new database to be created and new #les have to be
created by the same name.
This is a bug. The result from scandir should've been checked. If the result is 0 - meaning
no #les of the above form were found - the matches array is never allocated, BUT the code
still dereferences matches as if it were allocated thus seg fault.
Just looking brie#y at an Ultrix man page, freeWAIS-sf will bomb on this dec as well at the
same spot, so it's not just isolated to a "linux" quirk.
Here's my diff:


diff  -c  -r1.22  field_index.c
***  1.22                1994/09/07  13:29:22
---  field_index.c              1994/10/05  14:10:26
***************
***  760,776  ****
        strcpy(path,dir);
        strncat(path,"/",MAX_FILENAME_LEN);


!      scandir(dir,  &matches,  rmselector,  NULL);
!      for(i=0;matches[i];i++)  -
!          path[strlen(dir)+1]  =  '"0';
!          strncat(path,matches[i]->d_name,MAX_FILENAME_LEN);
!          s_free(matches[i]);
!          waislog(WLOG_LOW,  WLOG_INFO,  "deleting  ""%s""",  path);
!          if  (unlink(path))  -
!              waislog(WLOG_HIGH,  WLOG_ERROR,  "unlink  failed");
!          "
        "
-      s_free(matches);
        return(i);
    "

________________________________________________9
     news:UiYNLx600WB_RYIYUW@andrew.cmu.edu


---  760,777  ----
        strcpy(path,dir);
        strncat(path,"/",MAX_FILENAME_LEN);


!      if  (  scandir(dir,  &matches,  rmselector,  NULL)  >  0  )  -
!              for(i=0;matches[i];i++)  -
!                  path[strlen(dir)+1]  =  '"0';
!                  strncat(path,matches[i]->d_name,MAX_FILENAME_LEN);
!                  s_free(matches[i]);
!                  waislog(WLOG_LOW,  WLOG_INFO,  "deleting  ""%s""",  path);
!                  if  (unlink(path))  -
!                          waislog(WLOG_HIGH,  WLOG_ERROR,  "unlink  failed");
!                  "
!              "
!              s_free(matches);
        "
        return(i);
    "



2.3      0.9.10

     o   Support for HPUX_SOURCES added.

     o   Compiler version is now reorted by udping



2.4      0.9.8

     o   Patch from Alberto Accomazzi,  which causes stopwords to be taken either from
         the internal list or from the speci#ed #le.   Option -stop  /dev/null will run
         waisindex without any stopwords.

     o   Passes cc again.



2.5      0.9.7

     o   Removed the ANSI_LIKE de#ne in Default.tmpl.in, which caused problems in com-
         pilation on some platforms. We will postpone the ANSI stuff.

     o   Added tests for overlapping copies with bcopy() and memcpy(). If neither bcopy
         nor memcpy can handle this, a slow but working function in cutil.c is used.

     o   Support for caching the synonyms in shared memory provided by Alberto Accomazzi
          was added. Here is what he wrote about it:

         Caching is turned on by running waisserver with the #ag -cachesyn.

         For those of you who have fairly large synonym #les (> 10Kb) and are running the
         software on a machine that supports shared memory (all the UNIX boxes that I have
         worked with do now), enabling this feature will speed up the waisserver response
         time by a signi#cant factor.

         For  those  of  you  who  do  not  have  shared  memory,  I  have  rewritten  the  memory
         allocation part of synonym.c so that bigger memory chunks are allocated and used
         rather than allocating memory for each word and synonym, so the code should be a
         little faster for you too.

         You can #nd a brief explanation of how caching works in the header of synonym.c.


2.6      0.9.6

     o   Added the headline #x from Marko Niinimaki. Moved all de#nes to Defaults.tmpl.
         Removed ir/irlex.h from dist.

     o   Clean the #uninitialized Memory Read# bug in waissserver.



2.7      0.9.5

     o   Changed numbering for versions (to make jp happy)

     o   Changed con#gure code for -lsocket and -lnsl

     o   Fixed the TELL_USER code again to conform to ANSI

     o   Added install.lib target for the Make#les. (Only with Imake)

     o   Some additions to documentation

     o   Files on waisindex command line may now have extension ".gz".



2.8      0.94

     o   Some little #xes to make purify happy.

     o   Fixed the keyword code.

     o   config.h is not in the distribution any more, which was a bug.

     o   The result of getenv("USER") will not break waisserver any more if NULL is returned.



2.9      0.93

In this version code was added to send me a UDP packet each time the INFO database gets
re-indexed.  This should not disturb the normal operation of the server, even if the sending
fails.   I included that to track use of the software.   You can switch this off by de#ning
DO_NOT_TELL_ABOUT_ME in Defaults.tmpl



2.10       Beta 05

     o   A bug in calculation the #Total word count# has been #xed

     o   Indexing and retrieval of #les compressed by the GNU gzip is now supported. If you
         want to index a #le TEST.gz, call waisindex with the extension stripped:


         waisindex  -t  text  -d  test  TEST


         This worked formerly only with the standard compress command and the #.Z#
         extension.


3      Indexing


If you want to index a collection of #les containing one or more documents using FreeWAIS-
sf #rst look at the supported document type formats.  You may look at the  manual page
of waisindex10  or type waisindex without arguments for information about supported
document types.
If your document object is one of the supported types, run the waisindex command with the
t -t argument:
waisindex  -d  index_file_root_name  -t  doc_type  object  object  : : :
where:

-d   denotes the rootname to be used for the collection of index #les and will include suf#xes
         created by the waisindex program

-t  denotes the document types supported by the waisindex command

object     is the #le name of a target object to be indexed by the command.

Both the -d and object speci#cations support full pathnames and default to the current
directory if no pathnames are provided.
If you have a document in an unsupported format or would like to split individual documents
into #elds, you must generate two document format #les.
First you should decide which #elds you will use, and what their name should be. Usually
it is a good idea to provide further information about what the #elds contain or mean.  The
#eld de#nition #le .fde contains this information. Here is an example:


py:  publication  year
au:  author
ti:  title
jt:  journal  title
ck:  citation  key


Waisindex will put the names of the generated #elds in the server description (.-
src) it will produce if a #eld de#nition #le is encountered.
Now comes the hard part.  You now have to generate a format #le .fmt for
your new database. Look at  the examples11  on our ftp server if the following is too obscure.
The abstract syntax for the speci#cation #les follows:
________________________________________________10
  11 http://ls6-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/htbin/man?waisindex()
     ftp://ls6-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/pub/wais


3.1      Document Speci#cation Syntax

  format              !       regexp speclist
  speclist            !      spec | spec speclist
                               <#eld>         REGEXP regexp
                                              #eld-list
  spec                !                       options
                                              index-specs
                                         regexp
  options             !      2 | option options
                               NUMERIC regexp INT
  options             !        HEADLINE regexp INT
                               DATE REGEXP REGEXP date date date regexp
  index-specs         !      2 | index-spec index-specs
  index-spec          !      index-type dicts
  index-type          !      TEXT | SOUNDEX | PHONIX
  dicts               !      GLOBAL | LOCAL | BOTH
  date                !      DAY | MONTH month-spec | YEAR
  month-spec          !      2 | STRING
  #eld-list           !      2 | WORD #eld-list
Now what do the index types LOCAL, GLOBAL and BOTH mean?
Note that FreeWAIS-sf generates dictionaries and inverted #les for each #eld. If there were
no global or default #eld for general text search one would always have to specify a #eld
in your queries.  To avoid this inconvenience waisindex generates a default #eld which is
used for searching if there is no #elds speci#ed. This #eld is called global, since it usually
contains the information of some of the other #elds which the administrator assumes to be
useful for unexperienced users.
The contents of the index #eld are de#ned by using the keywords LOCAL, GLOBAL and
BOTH in the #eld de#nitions.


LOCAL         Words in this #eld are not inserted in the global database and are only retrievable
         by #eld query.  Numeric and date #elds are particularly well suited to the use of this
         option.

GLOBAL          Words in this #eld are only inserted in the global database.  This is analogous
         to the default free-text search of other versions of freeWAIS but allows all or part of
         the document to be indexed for general search.  Do not specify a #eld name in this
         case since the #eld will be empty!

BOTH       Words in this #eld are inserted in both the current #eld database and the global
         database.


Regular expressions are used to #nd, match, and parse strings encountered in a document.
These regular expressions are used within the .fmt #le to delimit #eld entries. For those not
familiar with regular expressions, some conventions are provided in the following section:


3.1.1     REGULAR EXPRESSION SYNTAX

__Operator____________Meaning___________________________________
  x                   the character "x"
  "x"                 an "x", even if x is an operator
  "x                  an "x", even if x is an operator
  [xy]                the character x or y
  [x-z]               the characters x, y or z
  [^x]                any character but x
  .                   any character but newline
  ^x                  an x at the beginning of a line
  x$                  an x at the end of a line
  x?                  an optional x
  x*                  0,1,2, ... instances of x
  x+                  1,2,3, ... instances of x
  x_y                 an x or a y
  (x)                 an x
  x-m,n"              m through n occurrences of x
Note that the scanner requires an aditional level of escaping because the '/' indicates the
end of the regular expression. So '/' must be escaped by a backslash: '"/'. If you need
a backslash in you regexp, it must me escaped to: '""'. Since formfeed and other control
characters are often needed '"x' for x from 'A' to 'Z' is mapped to '^x' (ctrl x, ). This
means 'A' is subtracted from the original character.
For example "A=^A(ctrnl  A), "B  =  ^B, : : :"J  =  "n (newline).  This is somewhat
ad-hoc,  but  was  easy  to  implement  and  allows  users  of  limited  editors  to  enter  control
characters in the format #le.
Here is a #rst small example of a structured document collection to be indexed.


3.1.2     Small example

Suppost you have #les containing many documents, from which you will only index thier
titles contained between  tags:


  Information  Retrieval  <:TI>
[...]
  Database  Systems  <:TI>


You format #le (.fmt) should look like this:


  //
ti  TEXT  LOCAL
  /<:TI>/


Now  that  you  have  you  format  #le  .fmt,  call  waisindex  with  option  '-t
fields'. Because the .fmt #le already begins with the index #le root name it is used by
the FreeWAIS-sf waisindex program. The -t #elds option must have a .fmt #le present.
Now its time to give a more complicated example:


3.1.3     DOCUMENT SPEC EXAMPLE

For an example #le like this


CK:  Mostert/etal:89
AU:  Mostert,  D.N.J.;  Eloff,  J.H.P.;  von  Solms,  S.H.
TI:  A  Methodology  for  Measuring  User  Satisfaction.
JT:  Information  processing  &  management.
ED:  JAN-01-1994
VO:  25
PY:  1989
NO:  5
PP:  545
^L
CK:  Qiu:90
AU:  Qiu,  Liwen
TI:  An  Empirical  Examination  of  the  Existing  Models  for
        Bradford's  Law.
JT:  Information  processing  &  management.
ED:  JAN-01-1994
VO:  26
PY:  1990
NO:  5
PP:  655
^L


the following format #le could be used:


    /^L/                                 records are separated by form feeds (Cntrl-L not
                                                     '^L' ! "L would be equivalent)
  
                                           line  which  starts  with  'TI:  '  and  ends  with
         /^TI:  /  /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/                    /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/ #rst 50 chars after 'TI:  '
         50  /TI:  /                                 are copied to the chars 1 to 50 of the headline.

                                           line  which  starts  with  'AU:  '  and  ends  with
         /^AU:  /  /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/                    /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/ #rst 50 chars after 'AU:  '
         50  /AU:  /                                 are copied to chars 51 to 100 of the headline.

      /^ED:  /                                 line   starts   with   /^ED:  /  /%s-%d-%d/   is
         /%s-%d-%d/                                  sscanf_argument Month is a string (nummber by
         month  string  day  year
         /^ED:  [^  ]/                               default if you don't type 'string') after month
                                                     is day, then year.  /^ED:  [^  ]/ is the begin of
                                                     index position. 
                                                     end of layout.
      /^PY:  /                                It  is  a  numeric  #eld  of  length  4,  begin  at  #rst
    py                                      number of PY, e.g if the number is 1990 then the
    /^PY:  [^  ]/  4  TEXT  LOCAL
      /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/                            regexp /^PY:  [^  ]/ means ^ here is the begin
                                                     of the number (begin of line by default) indexed
                                                     with type TEXT in the local dictionary only and
                                                     ends  with  the  next  tag.   Note  that  matching  for
                                                     the end tag is restricted to posintions after the skip
                                                     regexp /^PY:  [^  ]/.  This enshures, that the
                                                     PY: is not recognized as end tag, causing the #eld
                                                     to be empty.
      /^AU:  /                                #eld 'au' is indexed with types TEXT and SO-
    au  SOUNDEX  LOCAL  TEXT  LOCAL                  UNDEX in the local dictionary.
      /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/
      /^CK:  /                                #eld 'ck' is indexed with type text in the local
    ck  TEXT  BOTH                                   and the global dict.
      /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/
      /^TI:  /                                #eld 'ti' is indexed with type text in the local
    ti  stemming  TEXT  BOTH                         and the global dict.  'stemming' indicate that
      /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/                            the stemmer is to call for this #eld (no stemming

                                                     by default).
      /^AU:  /                                #eld 'au' is indexed with type text in the local
    au  TEXT  BOTH                                   and the global dict.
      /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/
      /^JT:  /  /^JT:  [^  ]/                 #elds 'jt' and 'jt' are indexed with type text
    ti  jt  TEXT  BOTH                               in the local and the global dict. The begin is at the
      /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/                            #rst  character  after  this  regexp  /^JT:  [^  ]/

                                                     (optional, begin of line by default), e.g JT: Infor-
                                                     mation processing & management.  ^ here is the
                                                     beginning to index.
      /^AU:  /                                line  which  begins  with  the  regexp  /^AU:  /
    TEXT  GLOBAL                                     should be indexed only in global dictionary.
      /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/


3.2      Note

     o   If a separator is a empty line the regexp for this is "J.

     o   The length of a headline is 100 characters. If you want to change the length of headline
         update MAX_HEADER_LEN and MAX_HEADLINE_LEN in Defaults.tmpl.

     o   Of course, you can use other options too, e.g, waisindex  -d  index_filename
         -t  fields  -r  filename


     o   If you want to create only one #eld, but the old #elds should not be deleted you can
         use the option -nfields.  In the document speci#cation you must add new #elds
         which you want to index.

         Example


           ...
             /^AU:  /
           names  TEXT  LOCAL  _  BOTH
             /^[A-Z][A-Z]:/


         Only #eld 'names' would be created.

     o   If you want to specify the headline corresponding to the format de#ned, e.g.  (irlist,
         mail_or_rmail, etc.), and don't want to use the standard #eld format for headlines you
         must call this:
         waisindex  -d  test  -t  fields  -t  mail_or_rmail  TEST.

         The -t  mail_or_rmail option must be after the -t      fields option!


When you have generated your format #le, run waisindex with the '-t  fields' #ag
and see if your speci#cation works.  If the parser encounters a syntax error, there is very
limited support for debugging the offending part of your speci#cation.
Best way to circumvent this is to start with a very simple de#nition and try waisindex every
now and then.



4      Queries


4.1      How can you make a search query ?

4.1.1     QUERY SYNTAX

  query                !      expression
  expression           !      term
                              expression OR term
                              expression term                           OR may be ommited
  term                 !      factor
                              term AND factor
                              term NOT factor                           NOT really means AND NOT
  factor               !      word
                              ( expression )
                              #eld = ( s_expression )
                              #eld = word
                              #eld = phonix_soundex word                phonix or soundex search
                              #eld = = word                             for numeric #elds
                              #eld < word
                              #eld > word
  same as above, but no #eld spec is allowed, since one is given already
  s_expression         !      s_term
                              s_expression OR s_term
                              s_expression s_term
  s_term               !      s_factor
                              s_term AND s_factor
                              s_term NOT s_factor
  s_factor             !      WORD
                              ( s_expression )



4.1.2     QUERY EXAMPLES

  information  retrieval                                         free text queries
  information  OR  retrieval                                     same as above
  ti=information  retrieval                                      information must be in the title
  ti=(information  retrieval)                                    one of them in title
  ti=(information  OR  retrieval)                                one of them in title
  ti=(information  AND  retrieval)                               both of them in title
  ti=(information  NOT  retrieval)                               #information# in title and #retrieval# not
                                                                 in title
  py==1990                                                       numeric equal
  py<1990
  py>1990
  au=(soundex  salatan)                                          soundex search matches eg. #Salton#
  ti=('information  retrieval')                                  literal search
  ti=(information  system*)                                      partial search
The use of capital letters for the Boolean operators is not required but is provided in this
example for clarity. All search matching is case-insensitive.



5      Weighting


Here is an excerpt of the corresponding smart routine:
The documents would be presented by term vectors of the form


                                     D = (t0 ; wd0 ; t1 ; wd 1; :::; tt; wdt )


where each tk  identi#es a content term assigned to some sample document and wdk  repres-
ents the weight of term tk  in Document D (or query Q). Thus, a typical query Q might be
formulated as
                                     Q = (q0 ; wq0 ; q1 ; wq 1; :::; qt; wqt )

where qk  once again reprents a term assigned to query Q. The weights could be allowed to
vary continuosly between 0 and 14, the higher weight assignments near 1 being used for the
most important terms, whereas lower weights near 0 would characterize the less important
terms. Given the vector representation, a query-document similarity value may be obtained
by comparing the corresponding vectors, using for example the conventional vector product
formula
                           similarity(Q; D) = sum(wqk  * wdk ); k = 1tot:

Three factors important for term_weighting:

    1.   term frequency in individual document (recall)

    2.   inverse document frequency (precision)

    3.   document length (vector length)

Term frequency component used:  new _wgt  =  0:5 + 0:5 * tf =max_tf  augmented nor-
malized term frequency (tf  factor normalized by maximum tf  in the vector, and further
normalized to lie between 0:5 and 1:0).
Collection frequency component used: 1:0 no change in weight; use original term frequency
component.                    p   __________________P
Normalization component used:         new _wgt2      = vector _length.
Thus, document term weight is: wdk  = new _wgt=vector _length
By query term weighting, it is assumed that tf is equal to 1. So that wqk  = 1.



5.1      Document term weighting by standard Boolean formulations

Given queries "AorB", "AandB", and "AnotB" (A and-not B), a document X with weights
dA (X ) and dB  (X ) for terms A and B. The retrieval values are:

     o   dA (X ) + dB  (X ) for query (AorB)

     o   min(dA (X; dB  (X ) for query (AandB)

     o   min(A; 1 - dB  (X )) for query (AnotB(Aand - notB))

Note: If you use these new formula the inverted #les (.inv) will have a new structure.


5.1.1     Term weighting in wais



               wdk  = ((log(tf ) + 10) * idf )=number _of _terms_in_a_document


     o   tf = term frequency. Initially is tf = 5.

     o   idf = 1/term_frequency_in_the_collection


5.1.2     Disadvantages

     o   For example a database consists of 10 documents. A term which occurs 10 times in a
         document has the idf = 1/10. The same term which occurs in 10 documents has also
         idf = 1/10. One can say in both cases the term has the same relevance. This may not
         be correct.

     o   The normalization factor is not the weight of each term in the document but number
         of terms in a document.



6      Installation


Just run the configure script in the Distribution. If you have a working imake on you
system, enter xmkmf  -a now.
Then type:

make
         to build the system and run the tests

make  install
         to install binaries and scripts

make  install.man
         to install the manual pages only with imake.  The default Make#les install them with
         make  install

make  install.lib
         to install the libraries only with imake.

make  clean
         removes object #les, libraries, backups, : : :

make  veryclean
         removes #les generated by #ex, bison, dvips, latex



7      FreeWAIS-sf and WWW


Linking was tested with:


     o   NCSA Mosaic 2.4

     o   Tuebingen Univ Mosaic 2.4.2

     o   CERN httpd 3.0



7.1      freeWAIS-sf and CERN httpd

Direct WAIS access for CERN httpd 3.0 is easy to provide with freeWAIS-sf 1.1. The only
thing you need to do is rename the WAIS libraries in CERN httpd Make#le's.
If you're a lucky guy and your system supports imake, you need to:


     o   Retrieve  Rainer Klute's Imake extension to CERN httpd 3.012

     o   Replace WWW.cf in the top-level directory with this code in Appendix A

     o   Update the location of your freeWAIS-sf code in WWW.cf (variable WAISDIR)


If your system doesn't support imake, you need to update manually the WAIS libraries in
the Make#le pertaining to your architecture and the top-level Make#le.  And think about
how easy life would be if only you had imake.
Enjoy
Jean-Philippe (syj@ecmwf.co.uk)
There is also a CGI Gateway especially suited for FreeWAIS-sf  which enables usage of
Mosaic forms for searching.   See the   SFgate Documentation and Demos13  on our http
server.



8      FreeWAIS-sf and gopher 2.1.1 (by Steve Hsieh)


Files used:

gopher2_1_1.tar.Z
freeWAIS-sf-1.0.tgz


Changes made to the distribution:


Apply patches 1-6,8-9 (not 7) to the original freewais-sf-1.0 source tree.  You may or may
not want to apply all of them.   Patches available in the pub/wais directory on ftp://ls6-
www.informatik.uni-dortumund.de


SPECIAL NOTES:

Linux:     you must at least apply patch001

Solaris:     do not apply patch005
________________________________________________12
  13 ftp://ftp.germany.eu.net/pub/infosystems/www/cern/WWW-Imake.tar.gz
     http://ls6-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/SFgate/SFgate



How to    in gopher2_1_1/gopherd/Make
replaced original SFWAISOBJ with:


(linux):



         SFWAISOBJ              =  ../regexp/libregexp.a  ../ir/libinv.a  ../ir/libclient.a  "
                                            ../ir/libwais.a  ../ir/liblocal.a  ../ir/libsig.a  "
                                            ../ui/source.o  ../lib/libftw.a



(solaris & SunOS):



         SFWAISOBJ              =  ../ir/libinv.a  ../ir/libclient.a  ../ir/libwais.a  "
                                            ../ir/liblocal.a  ../ir/libsig.a  ../ui/source.o  "
                                            ../regexp/libregexp.a  ../lib/libftw.a


in gopher2_1_1/gopherd/waisgopher.c: change

                MIN(

to

                MINIMUM(

run con#gure in freeWAIS-sf-1.0
For the following con#gure questions, 'required' means that I had to use that value to get
gopher to work with freewais-sf. 'doesn't matter' means that the decision is up to you...


Do  you  want  to  use  your  systems  regexp.h  (no)?    no  <--  required
Will  you  have  HEADLINE  files  greater  than  16  MB  (no)?      no  <--  doesn't  matter
Use  your  systems  ctype  (no)?        yes  <--  required
Do  you  want  to  compile  with  -DLOCAL_SEARCH  (yes)?              yes  <--  required
Do  you  want  to  use  the  modified  URL  handling  (no)?            no  <--  doesn't  matter
Where  should  the  installation  go  (/usr/local/wais)?  (specify  your  own  path)
Do  you  want  to  use  shm  cache  (no)?            no  <--  doesn't  matter
Disable  the  UDP  packet  sending  (no)?        no  <--  doesn't  matter


make freewais-sf-1.0 : : :
create symbolic links to in gopher2_1_1 to the appropriate freewais-sf directories...
In gopher2_1_1:

ln  -s  ../freeWAIS-sf-1.0/ir
ln  -s  ../freeWAIS-sf-1.0/ui
ln  -s  ../freeWAIS-sf-1.0/lib
ln  -s  ../freeWAIS-sf-1.0/regexp

Edit gopher2_1_1/Makefile.conf  gopher2_1_1/conf.h as necessary for your
system and site.
Make sure to uncomment -DFREEWAIS_SF in Makefile.conf !
make gopher...
In the case of an index type not recognized error, test an index on an database that has been
reindexed using the newly compiled waisindex in freeWAIS-sf-1.0/ir (as opposed
to gopherindex) just to make sure that there really still is a problem...



9      FreeWAIS-sf and gopher 2.016 (by Steve Hsieh)


Here  are  the  changes  that  I  made  to  get  freewais1.0  and  gopher2.016  running  happily
together the way we wanted:


     o   The important freewais-sf con#gure options (questions below with no value can take
         on a value of your choice):


             use  your  systems  regexph.h?  (no)          <--  necessary  for  gopher  to  work
             headlines  >  16MB?  (yes)
             use  systems  ctype?  (yes)                      <--  necessary  for  gopher  to  work
             compile  with  -DLOCAL_SEARCH?  (yes)       <--  necessary  for  gopher  to  do  local  searches
             modify  URL?
             install  where?
             use  shm  cache?
             disable  UDP  packet  sending?



     o   make freewais-sf

     o   cd to freeWAIS-sf-dir/ir and type, ar  cq  sfextra.a  query_y.o  field_y.o
         query_l.o. Some systems need a call of ranlib: ranlib  sfextra.a.

     o   cd to freeWAIS-sf-dir/bin and type,


         ln  -s  ../regexp/libregexp.a  regexp.a
         ln  -s  ../lib/libftw.a  libftw.a


     o   Create ui, ir, and bin symbolic links in gopher source directory to corresponding
         ui, ir, and bin dirs in freewais-sf-dir as instructed in gopherd installation docs
         regarding wais.

     o   Apply  this patch14  to the gopher-dir/gopherd directory.  Instructions on how to do
         this are included with the #le.

     o   make gopher


That's all there is to it...



Contents of patch #le

Below, I have summarized (in words) the changes that the patch above makes to #les in
gopher-dir /gopherd.  Please use the patch to make the actual changes, as there may be
typos or other kinds of errors below...

     o   in gopher-dir/gopherd/waisgopher.c Between the two lines


                readSearchResponseAPDU(&query_response,  response_message  +
         HEADER_LENGTH);

                display_search_response(query_response,  server_name,  service,  database,
         SourceName,  sockfd,  view,  isgplus);


         added:


                LOGGopher(sockfd,  "search  %s  for  %s",  database,  keywords);


         Also replaced:
________________________________________________14
     ftp://ls6-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/pub/wais/gopher2.016.patch.gz



                             MIN


    with


                             MINIMUM


o   in gopher-dir/gopherd/Make  Commented out existing WAISOBJ and re-
    placed with:


        WAISOBJ  =  ../ir/libinv.a  ../ir/libclient.a  "
                        ../ir/libwais.a  $(WAISGATEOBJ)  "
                        ../bin/regexp.a  ../ir/libinv.a  "
                        ../ir/sfextra.a  ../bin/regexp.a  ../bin/libftw.a


o   For Path=7/indexdir/index to work in .links #les, we could do this by
    changing the openDatabase call Waisindex.c from


           db  =  openDatabase(new"_db"_name,  false,  true);


           db  =  openDatabase(new"_db"_name,  false,  true,  false);


    But booleans don't work when we do this...so instead, we modify the following #les:

o   In gopher-dir/gopherd/gopherd.c:

    Replace


           case  '7':
                   /***  It's  an  index  capability  ***/
                   result  =  GDCCanSearch(Config,  CurrentPeerName,  CurrentPeerIP,
                                                      NUMgopherds);

                   if  (result  ==  SITE_NOACCESS)  -
                           Abortoutput(sockfd,  GDCgetBummerMsg(Config));
                           LOGGopher(sockfd,  "Denied  access  for  %s",  Selstr+1);
                           break;
                   "  else  if  (result  ==  SITE_TOOBUSY)  -
                           Abortoutput(sockfd,  "Sorry,  too  busy  now...");
                           break;
                   "

                   Do_IndexTrans(sockfd,  Selstr+1,  cmd,  TRUE);

                   break;


    with:


           case  '7':
           -
                   int  Index_type=0;

                   /***  It's  an  index  capability  ***/
                   result  =  GDCCanSearch(Config,  CurrentPeerName,  CurrentPeerIP,
                                                      NUMgopherds);

                   if  (result  ==  SITE_NOACCESS)  -
                           Abortoutput(sockfd,  GDCgetBummerMsg(Config));
                           LOGGopher(sockfd,  "Denied  access  for  %s",  Selstr+1);
                           break;
                   "  else  if  (result  ==  SITE_TOOBUSY)  -
                           Abortoutput(sockfd,  "Sorry,  too  busy  now...");
                           break;
                   "



                   /*  see  if  index  is  type  1,  which  is  a  wais  index  */
                   Index_type  =  Find_index_type(Selstr+1);

                   if  (Index_type  ==  1)
                       -
                           char  waisfname[512];   /***  Ick  this  is  gross  ***/

                           strcpy(waisfname,  Selstr+1);
                           if  (strlen(waisfname)  <=  4  __
                                  strncmp(&waisfname[strlen(waisfname)-4],".src",4)  )
                                   strcat(waisfname,  ".src");
                           SearchRemoteWAIS(sockfd,  waisfname,  cmd,  view);
                        "
                   else
                       -
                          Do_IndexTrans(sockfd,  Selstr+1,  cmd,  TRUE);
                       "

                   break;
           "


o   Then for mindex searches to work,  edit gopher-dir/gopherd/mindexd.c and
    comment out:


                   if  (strcmp(slaves[i].host,  "localhost")  ==  0  __
                          strcasecmp(slaves[i].host,  Zehostname)   ==  0)  -
                           CMDsetSelstr(cmd,  GSgetPath(gs));
                           CMDsetSearch(cmd,  queryline);
                           CMDsetGplus(cmd,  FALSE);

                           Do_IndexTrans(sockfd,  slaves[i].pathname+1,  cmd,  FALSE);
                   "  else  -


    I also commented out the associated closing } with that paragraph a little over 30
    lines down.

o   In function do_mindexd(sockfd,  config_filename,  search,  isgplus,
    view): Between the two lines


           HandleQuery(sockfd,  search);
           close(sockfd);


    added:


           LOGGopher(sockfd,  "mindex  search  using  %s.mindex  for  %s",
    config_filename,
    search);


    There is also a bug in gopher-dir/gopherd/waisgopher.c As it stands, if you
    do a search using Path=waissrc:..., and search is empty, server does not return
    a '.', leaving old clients hanging

    To #x, found the line (near or on line 557)


           writestring(sockfd,  "."r"n");


    and moved it to after the second to last curly brace of that procedure call.  In other
    words, at the end of this procedure:



                            Mydisplay_text_record_completely(  info->Text[k++],  false,  sockfd);
                                "
                        "
                "
         "


         became


                            Mydisplay_text_record_completely(  info->Text[k++],  false,  sockfd);
                                "
                        "
                "
                writestring(sockfd,  "."r"n");
         "


     o   Some additional enhancements to gopher-dir/gopherd/mindexd.c were made
         as well to make it more robust and handle connections that time out.  They are not
         documented here; see the patch for details.



10        Special needs


10.1       Increasing the index block size (by Steve Hsieh)

In order to increase the index block size, so that words that appear many many times are
indexed:


     o   In freewais-sf-dir/ir/irfiles.h change


              #else
              #define  INDEX_BLOCK_SIZE_SIZE  2
              #endif


         to


              #else
              #define  INDEX_BLOCK_SIZE_SIZE  3
              #endif


     o   In freewais-sf-dir/ir/server.h change


                        #define  BUFSZ  100000          /*  size  of  our  comm  buffer  */


         to


                        #define  BUFSZ  1000000        /*  size  of  our  comm  buffer  */


     o   In freewais-sf-dir/ui/waissearch.c Change


                        #define  MAX_MESSAGE_LEN  100000


         to


                        #define  MAX_MESSAGE_LEN  BUFSZ


         The last step will be obsolet in version > 1:0.



11        TODO


Here is a somewhat adhoc list of things to #x and features to add:


X11R6       Some might have noticed that the X clients do not (yet) compile with the new X11
         release. Porting should not be too dif#cult for someone with some X11 Knowledge

ANSI      Code currently does not pass a strikt ANSI Compiler.  We intend to switch to the
         Prototyping scheme known from the WWW library:


         #ifdef  __STDC__
         #define  ARGS1(t,a)  "
                                  (t  a)
         #else   /*  not  ANSI  */
         #define  ARGS1(t,a)  (a)  "
                                  t  a;
         #endif  /*  __STDC__  (ANSI)  */


waisindex BUGS



         #lenames      Waisindex has still problems with #lenames.  E.g.  #les with apostophes
                or asterics in them are not handled properly.  Filenames with wildcards may
                enter the #lename table despite the fact, that they do not exists.

         -a   The -a #ag is not handled properly. Adding a #le, which contains only a subset
                of the declared #elds causes the other #elds to be ignored by the server until a
                #complete# document is added.

Compressed Indexes             There are several know methods for compressing inverted #les which
         could save us disc space and signi#catly improve search speed.

Spatial Indexes        (Notes from Doug Nebert)

         We would like to add a #eld type into the SF software which would allow for the
         parsing of and indexing of geographic coordinates that describe the outline of a data
         set or document.  Software has been written outside of SF to do the parsing (using
         #ex), and the indexing and overlay routines have been included into the freeWAIS-0.3
         code.  Now we need to integrate the code so that we can perform full #eld searching
         of text, dates, numbers, and geography in one indexing system.

Forms      (Notes from Doug Nebert)

         It seems to me that if the SF crowd can consistently use the .fde #le incorporated into
         the available .src #le that a functionality like "explain" can be developed to allow the
         client to determine what attributes are being used and formulate a query window to
         match it.  probably easier would be to have a "form" resource #le which could be
         retrieved from the server (e.g. query.html) by a "smart" http client...

Relevance Feedback            Notice, that the thing build in freeWAIS* is not #Relevance Feed-
         back#. It is rathersome kind of query expansion. Real Relevance Feedback is proved
         to produce much more effective ranking.

update      (Notes from Marc Edgar)

         How about having a script that could automatically update a the database.  That is, a
         record would be kept of which #les were in the database.  This record (.rec or some
         such) could be used instead of having to remember or #nd the command that created
         it. That is, it would support something like,


                      waisindex  -update  filename.rec



         to rebuild the database.

format #les       (Notes from Marc Edgar)

         Programs like this become immortal when they do not take any special knowlege to
         use. Format #les for common data types would make FreeWAIS-sf more accessible.
         Maybe you've already done this but format #les like, FAQ.fmt, email.fmt, usenet.fmt
         would be very helpful,  (and probably not that hard to write.)   Maybe creating an
         incoming directory on your ftp server would be useful, so that users could post their
         .fmt #les and save you from having to do the work.

Z39.50 V2       (Notes from Doug Nebert)

         It seems that the functionality you have provided matches very well the basic abilities
         of Z39.50 V2 and V3 in terms of #elds and search.  If there were a way to identify
         registered attributes then the construction of a gateway from ZDIST to an FreeWAIS-
         sf store of data would be possible, allowing people to keep their data in one format
         and serve the V1 and non V1 communities.

         My  thoughts  regarding  a  linkage  between  FreeWAIS-sf  and  a  full  Z39.50  V2-3
         release such as ZDIST were to provide a link into the new capabilities and other
         "compliant" clients out there.  But I think much of the API work could be done with
         the help of CNIDR personnel # their "linkage" back into freeWAIS-0.3 disabled some
         of the functionality whereas FreeWAIS-sf is more on the same level of sophistication
         as V2 and should be easier to connect to. If such a connection can be made it would
         allow  you  all  to  maintain  and  enhance  the  existing  code  and  have  some  partners
         out here work on maintaining the API connection, taking the load off you except in
         consultation : : :

Fields    Note from Alberto Accomazzi (Darin McKeever proposed similar features).

         First of all,  when indexing the documents,  the user should be able to specify the
         following for each #eld to be indexed:


             o  minimum word length

             o  set of characters composing the terms # i.e. the delimiter set

             o  synonym #le

             o  stopword #le

         This could be done by allowing the entries in the format #le to look like:


                       /^Authors:  /
                     au  TEXT  BOTH  minchars  2  word  /[^  ;"n=()]+/
                            stop  abstracts_field_au.stop  syn  abstracts_field_syn.syn
                     


         Other things such as headline length should be speci#able in the .fmt #le as well.

Documentation           Counting the mails I receive every day leads to the conclusion that there
         is a lack of documentation.

         man    The online manuals are out of date.

         document specs         Many people have dif#culties in building document speci#cations.
                Either there should be a nicer input format or someone should provide a compiler
                (+checking and testing?) for some prettier speci#cation format.

         other systems       There  should  be  more  info  on:  How  do  i  use  FreeWAIS-sf  with
                Gopher, Mosaic, httpd, perl, : : :

         : : :

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