

Swish-e – Tool for full-text indexing local files - fiatjaf
http://swish-e.org/docs/swish-run.html

======
samspenc
I used this extensively during a grad research project almost 6-8 years ago,
and for anyone wondering about this, here was what I found:

1\. Easy to set up / install

2\. Command line tool - so easy to use in scripts / automation

3\. Has plugins that let you index almost any file type - PDF, docs, etc.

4\. If you want to index an unsupported type (say, index images by file name),
you write a plugin yourself. Which wasn't too hard, IIRC.

For anyone asking about comparison with Lucene, etc, this is my take on it -
Swish-e is really more a search tool that lets you get up and running with
searches fairly easily, without too much overhead. I suspect that it might
fall apart for more sophisticated search functionality - the type that Lucene
really shines at.

------
jamespo
I used this in the 90s, it's been around almost as long as the web
[http://swish-e.org/docs/readme.html#swish_e_s_history](http://swish-e.org/docs/readme.html#swish_e_s_history)

------
jaytaylor
Never heard of this until now. The last release was 5 years ago in 2009.
Anyone have actual experience with it they can share with us? I'm keen to hear
HN'ers thoughts and/or opinions.

The "who uses it" page lists organizations and sites purported to use it [0],
though I can't say I recognize or use any of the listed sites.

[0] [http://swish-e.org/who.html](http://swish-e.org/who.html)

~~~
fiatjaf
I've never heard of it also, but it is quite handful.

If you are dealing with some files on your computer (or on the web, swish-e
can scrape pages and index HTML) you shouldn't need to install and learn a lot
of Lucene/elasticsearch, just do:

    
    
        sudo apt-get install swish-e
        swish-e -i folder/ file.txt file.html
        swish-search -w 'word'

------
walterbell
How does Swish compare with Regain/lucene
([http://regain.sourceforge.net/](http://regain.sourceforge.net/)) and
Recoll/xapian ([http://recoll.org](http://recoll.org))?

~~~
bch
Multi-byte indexing[1] was the biggest issue I recall the last time I used it,
which may or may not matter to you. Otherwise it's easy and fun to use.

[1] [http://swish-e.org/docs/swish-
faq.html#can_swish_e_index_mul...](http://swish-e.org/docs/swish-
faq.html#can_swish_e_index_multi_byte_characters_)

