Field searches

Fields are extracted from the document and stored in the collection for retrieval and searching, and can be returned on a results list. Zones, on the other hand, are merely the definitions of "regions" of a document for searching purposes, and are not physically extracted from the document in the same way that fields are extracted.

You must define a region of text as a zone before it can be a field. Therefore, it can be only a zone, or it can be both a field and a zone. Whether you define a region of text as a zone only or as both a field and a zone depends on your particular requirements.

A field must be defined in the style file, style.ufl, before you create the collection. To map zones to fields (to display field data), you must define and add these extra fields to style.ufl.

You can specify the values for the cfindex attributes TITLE, KEY, URL, and CUSTOM as document fields for use with relational operators in the criteria attribute. (The SCORE and SUMMARY attributes are automatically returned by a cfsearch; these attributes are different for each record of a collection as the search criteria changes.) Text comparison operators can reference the following document fields:

cf_title
cf_key
cf_url
cf_custom1
cf_custom2

To explore how to use document fields to refine a search, consider the following database table, named Calls. This table has four fields and three records, as the following table shows:

call_ID	Problem_Description	Short_Description	Product
1	Can't bold text properly under certain conditions	Bold Problem	HomeSite+
2	Certain optional attributes are acting as required attributes	Attributes Problem	ColdFusion
3	Can't do a File/Open in certain cases	File Open Problem	HomeSite+

A Verity search for the word certain returns three records. However, you can use the document fields to restrict your search; for example, a search to retrieve HomeSite+ problems with the word certain in the problem description.

These are the requirements to run this procedure:

Create and populate the Calls table in a database of your choice
Create a collection named Training (you can do this in CFML or in the ColdFusion MX Administrator).

The following table shows the relationship between the database column and cfindex attribute:

Database column	The cfindex attribute	Comment
call_ID	key	The primary key of a database table is often a key attribute.
Problem_Description	body	This column is the information to be indexed.
Short_Description	title	A short description is conceptually equivalent to a title, as in a running title of a journal article.
Product	custom1	This field refines the search.

You begin by selecting all data in a query:

<cfquery name = "Calls" datasource = "MyDSN">
   Select * from Calls
</cfquery>

The following code shows the cfindex tag for indexing the collection (the type attribute is set to custom for tablular data):

<cfindex
   query = "Calls"
   collection = "training"
   action = "UPDATE"
   type = "CUSTOM"
   title = "Short_Description"
   key = "Call_ID"
   body = "Problem_Description"
   custom1 = "Product">

To perform the refined search for HomeSite+ problems with the word certain in the problem description, the cfsearch tag uses the CONTAINS operator in its criteria attribute:

<cfsearch
   collection = "training"
   name = "search_calls"
   criteria = "certain and CF_CUSTOM1 <CONTAINS> HomeSite">

The following code displays the results of the refined search:

<table border="1" cellspacing="5">
<tr>
   <th align="LEFT">KEY</th>
   <th align="LEFT">TITLE</th>
   <th align="LEFT">CUSTOM1</th>
</tr>

<cfoutput query = "search_calls">
<tr>
   <td>#KEY#</td>
   <td>#TITLE#</td>
   <td>#CUSTOM1#</td>
</tr>
</cfoutput>
</table>

Field searches

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