Collection Configuration


Before building a collection, you should be aware of the information covered in this section.

Building a collection includes selecting or creating a set of style files that determine how the collection is set up, creating the collection according to the style files, and submitting documents for insertion into the collection.

When you insert a document, the document is submitted and indexed so that it becomes searchable. You can update (reindex) documents that have changed, or delete references to documents that no longer need to be searchable. The directory that contains the physical document metadata for a collection is called the collection directory.

The Collection Directory

The collection directory stores the document indexes for a collection. The contents of the collection directory are created entirely by the collection-building application, and you should not modify the collection directory contents.

Collection Style Files

A set of style files determines configuration options common to a collection. All documents that are inserted into a collection must be indexed using the same set of style files.

Some search features available in Verity applications are enabled through configuration options set in the style files. These features include:

For complete information about the features and usage of style files, refer to Part II.

Collection Optimizations

Collection optimization features allow you to optimize a collection for the best possible search performance. There are two instances in which you would want to do this:

1. When a collection is done indexing and you want to publish it for general use

2. When you want to periodically perform optimizations on a constantly changing collection to improve search performance for current users of that collection and to recover space still occupied by deleted document indexes

If you are creating a collection to put on a CD-ROM, you should optimize the collection to ensure the best search performance. After indexing all the documents for a collection that you are building on your hard disk, you then select all available optimizing options. When the work is done, the collection will be optimized to yield the fastest performance possible, and it will be ready for the CD-ROM pressing.

There are a few different ways to optimize collections. Information about the available options is provided in the chapters on mkvdk in the Verity K2 Indexers Guide.

Altering Indexing Behavior

The indexing mode assigned to a collection determines performance and scheduling of indexing tasks performed by the Verity engine. By default, an indexing mode is assigned to a collection-building application. Several predefined indexing modes are available, so that you can choose an alternative indexing mode appropriate for your needs. For further information about using indexing modes, refer to Chapter 3, "Setting Policies."





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