Thread: How to write a own parser for full text search

Hi all,
I have installed PostgreSQL server on a Windows Server 2008 server and I
need to write a more complex parser than the default one in PostgreSQL.
Searching on internet i found this example:
http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/postgres/gist/tsearch/V2/docs/HOWTO-parser-tsearch2.html
where the parser is written in C language. I would know if can I write
the parser in another language (Java, I'm very poor in C)? And, if I
can, what kind of file would contain the functions of the parser (a dll
file, a class file).
The last question is: in that example are used some functions
(PG_GETARG_POINTER, PG_GETARG_INT32, and so on) that seem PostgreSQL
specific functions; which functions can I use in java?
May be these are banal questions, but I'm a newbee and I don't found
more resources on Internet! :)

Thanks in advance,
Antonio.

On 11/21/11 1:51 AM, Antonio Franzoso wrote:
>
> I have installed PostgreSQL server on a Windows Server 2008 server and
> I need to write a more complex parser than the default one in
> PostgreSQL. Searching on internet i found this example:
> http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/postgres/gist/tsearch/V2/docs/HOWTO-parser-tsearch2.html
>
> where the parser is written in C language. I would know if can I write
> the parser in another language (Java, I'm very poor in C)? And, if I
> can, what kind of file would contain the functions of the parser (a
> dll file, a class file).
> The last question is: in that example are used some functions
> (PG_GETARG_POINTER, PG_GETARG_INT32, and so on) that seem PostgreSQL
> specific functions; which functions can I use in java?
>

you'd better learn C if you want to do this.   those functions are part
of the tsearch parser API, which is a machine level API interface, Java
would be a huge uphill battle of fighting JNI stuff to get working, and
then you'd be attaching the whole huge bloated JVM to the side of
postgresql to implement this.



--
john r pierce                            N 37, W 122
santa cruz ca                         mid-left coast

On 21/11/11 22:51, Antonio Franzoso wrote:
> Hi all,
> I have installed PostgreSQL server on a Windows Server 2008 server and
> I need to write a more complex parser than the default one in
> PostgreSQL. Searching on internet i found this example:
> http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/postgres/gist/tsearch/V2/docs/HOWTO-parser-tsearch2.html
>
> where the parser is written in C language. I would know if can I write
> the parser in another language (Java, I'm very poor in C)? And, if I
> can, what kind of file would contain the functions of the parser (a
> dll file, a class file).
> The last question is: in that example are used some functions
> (PG_GETARG_POINTER, PG_GETARG_INT32, and so on) that seem PostgreSQL
> specific functions; which functions can I use in java?
> May be these are banal questions, but I'm a newbee and I don't found
> more resources on Internet! :)
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Antonio.
>
>
>
>
Hmm...

I am a Java developer, and Java is my favourite language.

Hiwever, I would never recommend writing this kind of thing in Java, as
C is much more appropriate.  So if I did not know C, I would learn C for
this.

Any serious devloper should be reasonable fluent in  AT LEAST 2 computer
langusages, and C is quite widely used.

More impoernatly, see if you can run PostgreSQL on LInux or a variety of
Unix, as Micosoft is not ideal as an O/S for performance and other
reasons (to put it diplomatically).


REgards,
Gavin