Custom Search Syntax using Solr, Lucene, and Parboiled

In a recent project with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Opensource Connections was asked to prototype the next generation of patent search – using Solr and Lucene. An important aspect of this project was the implementation of BRS, a specialized search syntax used by patent examiners during the examination process.

In this fast paced session, John Berryman, Data Architect at Bloom, will relate Opensource Connections’s experiences and describe how they used a combination of Parboiled (a Parser Expression Grammar [PEG] parser), Lucene Queries and SpanQueries, and an extension of Solr’s QParserPlugin to build BRS search functionality in Solr. First he will characterize the patent search problem and then define the BRS syntax itself. He will then introduce the Parboiled parser and discuss various considerations that one must make when designing a syntax parser. Following this he will describe the methodology used to implement the search functionality in Lucene/Solr. Finally, he will include an overview of their syntactic and semantic testing strategies.

The audience will leave this session with an understanding of how Solr, Lucene, and Parboiled may be used to implement their own custom search parser.

This intermediate level session will take place from 2:50-3:35 on Wednesday, November 6. Click here for more details.

About the Speaker:

Coming from a background of Aerospace Engineering, John Berryman soon discovered that his true interest lay at the intersections of information technology and entrepreneurship (and when applicable – math). In early 2011, John stepped away from his day job to take up software consulting. Finally John found permanent employment at Opensource Connections where he currently consults large enterprises about full-text search and Big Data applications. Highlights to this point have included prototyping the future of search with the US Patent and Trademark Office, implementing the search syntax used by patent examiners, and building a Solr search relevancy tuning framework called SolrPanl.

More Details:

• For more information about Lucene/Solr Revolution EU, visit lucenerevolution.org.
• For more Road to Revolution posts, click here.
• To view the full session agenda, click here.
• To register for the conference, click here.
• To get the latest conference news and updates, follow @LuceneSolrRev on Twitter.
• Do you have a question about the conference? Do you want to be added to the conference mailing list? Are you interested in sponsoring Revolution? If so, please email us at: info@lucenerevolution.org.

Lucene/Solr Revolution is presented by Lucidworks, the commercial entity for Apache Lucene/Solr open source search — the future of search technology.