Text-Query-Simple

NAME

Text::Query::Simple - Match text against simple query expression and return relevance value for ranking

SYNOPSIS

use Text::Query::Simple;

        # Constructor
        $query = Text::Query::Simple->new([QSTRING] [OPTIONS]);

        # Methods
        $query->prepare(QSTRING [OPTIONS]);
        $query->match([TARGET] [OPTIONS]);

DESCRIPTION

This module provides an object that tests a string or list of strings against a query expression similar to an AltaVista "simple query" and returns a "relevance value." Elements of the query expression may be regular expressions or literal text.

Query expressions are compiled into an internal form when a new object is created or the `prepare' method is called; they are not recompiled on each match.

Query expressions consist of words (sequences of nonwhitespace), regexps or phrases (quoted strings) separated by whitespace. Words or phrases prefixed with a `+' must be present for the expression to match; words or phrases prefixed with a `- ' must be absent for the expression to match.

A successful match returns a count of the number of times any of the words (except ones prefixed with `-') appeared in the text. This type of result is useful for ranking documents according to relevance.

A word or phrase may be followed by a number in parentheses; this specifies a weight to be given it.

INSTALLATION

This module is pure Perl, so you can simply copy it into the appropriate directory.

RESTRICTIONS

This module requires Perl 5.005 or higher.

AUTHOR

Eric Bohlman (ebohlman@netcom.com)

CREDITS

The parse_tokens routine was adapted from the parse_line routine in Text::Parsewords.

COPYRIGHT