Search Kit Reference

Overview

Search Kit is a powerful and streamlined C language framework for indexing and searching text in most human languages. It provides fast information retrieval in System Preferences, Address Book, Help Viewer, and Xcode. Apple’s Spotlight technology is built on top of Search Kit to provide content searching in Finder, Mail, and the Spotlight menu.

You can use Search Kit or Spotlight to provide similar functionality and powerful information-access capabilities within your Mac app. Search Kit is appropriate when you want your application to have full control over indexing and searching, and when your focus is file content. Search Kit is thread-safe and works with Cocoa and command-line tools.

Search Kit supports phrase searches, prefix/suffix/substring searches, Boolean searches, summarization, and relevance ranking. Search Kit uses Spotlight’s metadata importers when indexing documents and takes advantage of any additional importers available on a system.

Functions by Task

Functions are grouped according to the tasks you perform using them. For an alphabetical list of functions, go to the API index at the end of the document.

Creating, Opening, and Closing Indexes

Search Kit performs its searches not on documents but on its indexes of documents. The functions in this group let your application create memory-based and persistent indexes. Indexes are initially empty. Functions in “Managing Indexes” let you add document content to these indexes.

• SKIndexCreateWithURL
• SKIndexCreateWithMutableData
• SKIndexOpenWithData
• SKIndexOpenWithMutableData
• SKIndexOpenWithURL
• SKIndexClose
• SKIndexGetIndexType
• SKIndexGetTypeID

Managing Indexes

The functions in this section let your application add document content to (and remove document content from) indexes, work with memory- and disk-based indexes, and retrieve metadata from indexes.

• SKIndexAddDocumentWithText
• SKIndexAddDocument
• SKIndexFlush
• SKIndexCompact
• SKIndexGetDocumentCount
• SKIndexGetMaximumDocumentID
• SKIndexGetMaximumTermID
• SKIndexDocumentIteratorCreate
• SKIndexDocumentIteratorCopyNext
• SKIndexDocumentIteratorGetTypeID
• SKIndexGetAnalysisProperties
• SKIndexMoveDocument
• SKIndexRemoveDocument
• SKIndexRenameDocument
• SKIndexSetMaximumBytesBeforeFlush
• SKIndexGetMaximumBytesBeforeFlush

Working With Text Importers

Search Kit can import the textual content of file-based documents into indexes using the Spotlight metadata importers.

• SKLoadDefaultExtractorPlugIns

Working with Documents and Terms

From Search Kit’s perspective, a document is anything that contains text—an RTF document, a PDF file, a Mail message, an Address Book entry, an Internet URL, the result of a database query, and so on.

The functions in this section let your application create new document URL objects (SKDocumentRefs), retrieve metadata from documents, get information on document hierarchies, and work with documents and their terms in the context of Search Kit indexes.

• SKDocumentCreateWithURL
• SKDocumentCreate
• SKDocumentCopyURL
• SKDocumentGetName
• SKDocumentGetParent
• SKDocumentGetSchemeName
• SKDocumentGetTypeID
• SKIndexCopyDocumentForDocumentID
• SKIndexCopyInfoForDocumentIDs
• SKIndexCopyDocumentRefsForDocumentIDs
• SKIndexCopyDocumentURLsForDocumentIDs
• SKIndexCopyDocumentIDArrayForTermID
• SKIndexCopyTermIDArrayForDocumentID
• SKIndexCopyTermStringForTermID
• SKIndexGetTermIDForTermString
• SKIndexSetDocumentProperties
• SKIndexCopyDocumentProperties
• SKIndexGetDocumentState
• SKIndexGetDocumentTermCount
• SKIndexGetDocumentTermFrequency
• SKIndexGetTermDocumentCount
• SKIndexGetDocumentID

Fast Asynchronous Searching

• SKSearchCreate
• SKSearchFindMatches
• SKSearchCancel
• SKSearchGetTypeID

Working With Summarization

Search Kit’s Summarization functions supplant those in Apple’s Find by Content API.

• SKSummaryCreateWithString
• SKSummaryGetSentenceSummaryInfo
• SKSummaryGetParagraphSummaryInfo
• SKSummaryGetSentenceCount
• SKSummaryGetParagraphCount
• SKSummaryCopySentenceAtIndex
• SKSummaryCopyParagraphAtIndex
• SKSummaryCopySentenceSummaryString
• SKSummaryCopyParagraphSummaryString
• SKSummaryGetTypeID

Legacy Support for Synchronous Searching

Developers should avoid using the functions listed in this section; instead, use the replacement functions that are recommended. Search Kit retains the functions in this section for backward compatibility.

• SKSearchGroupCopyIndexes Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchGroupCreate Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchGroupGetTypeID Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchResultsCopyMatchingTerms Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchResultsCreateWithDocuments Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchResultsCreateWithQuery Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchResultsGetCount Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchResultsGetInfoInRange Deprecated in OS X v10.4
• SKSearchResultsGetTypeID Deprecated in OS X v10.4

Functions

SKDocumentCopyURL

Builds a CFURLRef object from a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef).

CFURLRef SKDocumentCopyURL (
   SKDocumentRef  inDocument
);

SKDocumentCreate

Creates a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) based on a scheme, parent, and name.

SKDocumentRef SKDocumentCreate (
CFStringRef    inScheme,
SKDocumentRef  inParent,
CFStringRef    inName
);

SKDocumentCreateWithURL

Creates a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) from a CFURLRef object.

SKDocumentRef SKDocumentCreateWithURL (
   CFURLRef  inURL
);

SKDocumentGetName

Gets the name of a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef).

CFStringRef SKDocumentGetName (
   SKDocumentRef  inDocument
);

SKDocumentGetParent

Gets the parent of a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef).

SKDocumentRef SKDocumentGetParent (
   SKDocumentRef  inDocument
);

SKDocumentGetSchemeName

Gets the scheme name for a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef).

CFStringRef SKDocumentGetSchemeName (
   SKDocumentRef  inDocument
);

SKDocumentGetTypeID

Gets the type identifier for Search Kit document URL objects.

CFTypeID SKDocumentGetTypeID (void);

SKIndexAddDocument

Adds location information for a file-based document, and the document’s textual content, to an index.

Boolean SKIndexAddDocument (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef   inDocument,
   CFStringRef     inMIMETypeHint,
   Boolean         inCanReplace
);

SKIndexAddDocumentWithText

Adds a document URL (SKDocumentRef) object, and the associated document’s textual content, to an index.

Boolean SKIndexAddDocumentWithText (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef   inDocument,
   CFStringRef     inDocumentText,
   Boolean         inCanReplace
);

SKIndexClose

Closes an index.

void SKIndexClose (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex
);

SKIndexCompact

Invokes all pending updates associated with an index, compacts the index if compaction is needed, and commits all changes to backing store.

Boolean SKIndexCompact (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex
);

SKIndexCopyDocumentForDocumentID

Obtains a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) from an index.

SKDocumentRef SKIndexCopyDocumentForDocumentID (
   SKIndexRef    inIndex,
   SKDocumentID  inDocumentID
);

SKIndexCopyDocumentIDArrayForTermID

Obtains document IDs for documents that contain a given term.

CFArrayRef SKIndexCopyDocumentIDArrayForTermID (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex,
   CFIndex     inTermID
);

SKIndexCopyDocumentProperties

Obtains the application-defined properties of an indexed document.

CFDictionaryRef SKIndexCopyDocumentProperties (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef   inDocument
);

SKIndexCopyDocumentRefsForDocumentIDs

Gets document URL objects (of type SKDocumentRef) based on document IDs.

void SKIndexCopyDocumentRefsForDocumentIDs (
   SKIndexRef     inIndex,
   CFIndex        inCount,
   SKDocumentID   *inDocumentIDsArray,
   SKDocumentRef  *outDocumentRefsArray
);

SKIndexCopyDocumentURLsForDocumentIDs

Gets document URLs based on document IDs.

void SKIndexCopyDocumentURLsForDocumentIDs (
   SKIndexRef    inIndex,
   CFIndex       inCount,
   SKDocumentID  *inDocumentIDsArray,
   CFURLRef      *outDocumentURLsArray
);

SKIndexCopyInfoForDocumentIDs

Gets document names and parent IDs based on document IDs.

void SKIndexCopyInfoForDocumentIDs (
   SKIndexRef    inIndex,
   CFIndex       inCount,
   SKDocumentID  *inDocumentIDsArray,
   CFStringRef   *outNamesArray,
   SKDocumentID  *outParentIDsArray
);

SKIndexCopyTermIDArrayForDocumentID

Obtains the IDs for the terms of an indexed document.

CFArrayRef SKIndexCopyTermIDArrayForDocumentID (
   SKIndexRef    inIndex,
   SKDocumentID  inDocumentID
);

SKIndexCopyTermStringForTermID

Obtains a term, specified by ID, from an index.

CFStringRef SKIndexCopyTermStringForTermID (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex,
   CFIndex     inTermID
);

SKIndexCreateWithMutableData

Creates a named index stored in a CFMutableDataRef object.

SKIndexRef SKIndexCreateWithMutableData (
   CFMutableDataRef  inData,
   CFStringRef       inIndexName,
   SKIndexType       inIndexType,
   CFDictionaryRef   inAnalysisProperties
);

SKIndexCreateWithURL

Creates a named index in a file whose location is specified with a CFURL object.

SKIndexRef SKIndexCreateWithURL (
   CFURLRef         inURL,
   CFStringRef      inIndexName,
   SKIndexType      inIndexType,
   CFDictionaryRef  inAnalysisProperties
);

SKIndexDocumentIteratorCopyNext

Obtains the next document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) from an index using a document iterator.

SKDocumentRef SKIndexDocumentIteratorCopyNext (
   SKIndexDocumentIteratorRef  inIterator
);

SKIndexDocumentIteratorCreate

Creates an index-based iterator for document URL objects (of type SKDocumentRef) owned by a parent document URL object.

SKIndexDocumentIteratorRef SKIndexDocumentIteratorCreate (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef   inParentDocument
);

SKIndexDocumentIteratorGetTypeID

Gets the type identifier for Search Kit document iterators.

CFTypeID SKIndexDocumentIteratorGetTypeID (void);

SKIndexFlush

Invokes all pending updates associated with an index and commits them to backing store.

Boolean SKIndexFlush (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex
);

SKIndexGetAnalysisProperties

Gets the text analysis properties of an index.

CFDictionaryRef SKIndexGetAnalysisProperties (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex
);

SKIndexGetDocumentCount

Gets the total number of documents represented in an index.

CFIndex SKIndexGetDocumentCount (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex
);

SKIndexGetDocumentID

Gets the ID of a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) in an index.

SKDocumentID SKIndexGetDocumentID (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef   inDocument
);

SKIndexGetDocumentState

Gets the current indexing state of a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) in an index.

SKDocumentIndexState SKIndexGetDocumentState (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef   inDocument
);

SKIndexGetDocumentTermCount

Gets the number of terms for a document in an index.

CFIndex SKIndexGetDocumentTermCount (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentID    inDocumentID
);

SKIndexGetDocumentTermFrequency

Gets the number of occurrences of a term in a document.

CFIndex SKIndexGetDocumentTermFrequency (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentID    inDocumentID,
   CFIndex         inTermID
);

SKIndexGetIndexType

Gets the category of an index.

SKIndexType SKIndexGetIndexType (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex
);

SKIndexGetMaximumBytesBeforeFlush

Not recommended. Gets the memory size limit for updates to an index, measured in bytes.

CFIndex SKIndexGetMaximumBytesBeforeFlush (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex
);

SKIndexGetMaximumDocumentID

Gets the highest-numbered document ID in an index.

SKDocumentID SKIndexGetMaximumDocumentID (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex
);

SKIndexGetMaximumTermID

Gets the highest-numbered term ID in an index.

CFIndex SKIndexGetMaximumTermID (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex
);

SKIndexGetTermDocumentCount

Gets the number of documents containing a given term represented in an index.

CFIndex SKIndexGetTermDocumentCount (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   CFIndex         inTermID
);

SKIndexGetTermIDForTermString

Gets the ID for a term in an index.

CFIndex SKIndexGetTermIDForTermString (
   SKIndexRef   inIndex,
   CFStringRef  inTermString
);

SKIndexGetTypeID

Gets the type identifier for Search Kit indexes.

CFTypeID SKIndexGetTypeID (void);

SKIndexMoveDocument

Changes the parent of a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) in an index.

Boolean SKIndexMoveDocument (
   SKIndexRef      inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef   inDocument,
   SKDocumentRef   inNewParent
);

SKIndexOpenWithData

Opens an existing, named index for searching only.

SKIndexRef SKIndexOpenWithData (
   CFDataRef       inData,
   CFStringRef     inIndexName
);

SKIndexOpenWithMutableData

Opens an existing, named index for searching and updating.

SKIndexRef SKIndexOpenWithMutableData (
   CFMutableDataRef    inData,
   CFStringRef         inIndexName
);

SKIndexOpenWithURL

Opens an existing, named index stored in a file whose location is specified with a CFURL object.

SKIndexRef SKIndexOpenWithURL (
   CFURLRef        inURL,
   CFStringRef     inIndexName,
   Boolean         inWriteAccess
);

SKIndexRemoveDocument

Removes a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) and its children, if any, from an index.

Boolean SKIndexRemoveDocument (
   SKIndexRef     inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef  inDocument
);

SKIndexRenameDocument

Changes the name of a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef) in an index.

Boolean SKIndexRenameDocument (
   SKIndexRef     inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef  inDocument,
   CFStringRef    inNewName
);

SKIndexSetDocumentProperties

Sets the application-defined properties of a document URL object (of type SKDocumentRef).

void SKIndexSetDocumentProperties (
   SKIndexRef       inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef    inDocument,
   CFDictionaryRef  inProperties
);

SKIndexSetMaximumBytesBeforeFlush

Not recommended. Sets the memory size limit for updates to an index, measured in bytes.

void SKIndexSetMaximumBytesBeforeFlush (
   SKIndexRef  inIndex
   CFIndex     inBytesForUpdate
);

SKLoadDefaultExtractorPlugIns

Tells Search Kit to use the Spotlight metadata importers.

void SKLoadDefaultExtractorPlugIns (void);

SKSearchCancel

Cancels an asynchronous search request.

void SKSearchCancel (
   SKSearchRef                 inSearch
);

SKSearchCreate

Creates an asynchronous search object for querying an index, and initiates search.

SKSearchRef SKSearchCreate (
   SKIndexRef       inIndex,
   CFStringRef      inQuery,
   SKSearchOptions  inSearchOptions
);

appl* OR *ing

SKSearchFindMatches

Extracts search result information from a search object.

Boolean SKSearchFindMatches (
   SKSearchRef     inSearch,
   CFIndex         inMaximumCount,
   SKDocumentID    *outDocumentIDsArray,
   float           *outScoresArray,
   CFTimeInterval  maximumTime
   CFIndex         *outFoundCount
);

SKSearchGetTypeID

Gets the type identifier for Search Kit search objects.

CFTypeID SKSearchGetTypeID (void);

SKSummaryCopyParagraphAtIndex

Gets a specified paragraph from the text in a summarization object.

CFStringRef SKSummaryCopyParagraphAtIndex (
   SKSummaryRef  summary,
   CFIndex       i,
);

SKSummaryCopyParagraphSummaryString

Gets a text string consisting of a summary with, at most, the requested number of paragraphs.

CFStringRef SKSummaryCopyParagraphSummaryString (
   SKSummaryRef  summary,
   CFIndex       numParagraphs
);

SKSummaryCopySentenceAtIndex

Gets a specified sentence from the text in a summarization object.

CFStringRef SKSummaryCopySentenceAtIndex (
   SKSummaryRef        summary,
   CFIndex             i,
);

SKSummaryCopySentenceSummaryString

Gets a text string consisting of a summary with, at most, the requested number of sentences.

CFStringRef SKSummaryCopySentenceSummaryString (
   SKSummaryRef  summary,
   CFIndex       numSentences
);

SKSummaryCreateWithString

Creates a summary object based on a text string.

SKSummaryRef SKSummaryCreateWithString (
   CFStringRef     inString
);

SKSummaryGetParagraphCount

Gets the number of paragraphs in a summarization object.

CFIndex SKSummaryGetParagraphCount (
   SKSummaryRef    summary
);

SKSummaryGetParagraphSummaryInfo

Gets detailed information about a body of text for constructing a custom paragraph-based summary string.

CFIndex SKSummaryGetParagraphSummaryInfo (
   SKSummaryRef            summary,
   CFIndex                 numParagraphsInSummary,
   CFIndex                 *outRankOrderOfParagraphs,
   CFIndex                 *outParagraphIndexOfParagraphs
);

SKSummaryGetSentenceCount

Gets the number of sentences in a summarization object.

CFIndex SKSummaryGetSentenceCount (
   SKSummaryRef    summary
);

SKSummaryGetSentenceSummaryInfo

Gets detailed information about a body of text for constructing a custom sentence-based summary string.

CFIndex SKSummaryGetSentenceSummaryInfo (
   SKSummaryRef            summary,
   CFIndex                 numSentencesInSummary,
   CFIndex                 *outRankOrderOfSentences,
   CFIndex                 *outSentenceIndexOfSentences,
   CFIndex                 *outParagraphIndexOfSentences
);

SKSummaryGetTypeID

Gets the type identifier for Search Kit summarization objects.

CFTypeID SKSummaryGetTypeID (void);

Callbacks

Developers should avoid using the callbacks listed in this section; instead, use SKSearchCreate and SKSearchFindMatches.

SKSearchResultsFilterCallBack

Deprecated. Use SKSearchCreate and SKSearchFindMatches instead, which do not use a callback.

typedef Boolean (SKSearchResultsFilterCallBack) (
   SKIndexRef     inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef     inDocument,
   void      *inContext

If you name your function MySearchResultsFilter, you would declare it like this:

Boolean MySearchResultsFilter (
   SKIndexRef     inIndex,
   SKDocumentRef     inDocument,
   void      *inContext
);

Data Types

SKDocumentRef

Defines an opaque data type representing a document’s URL.

typedef struct __SKDocument *SKDocumentRef;

SKIndexDocumentIteratorRef

Defines an opaque data type representing an index-based document iterator.

typedef struct __SKIndexDocumentIterator *SKIndexDocumentIteratorRef;

SKIndexRef

Defines an opaque data type representing an index.

typedef struct __SKIndex *SKIndexRef;

SKSearchRef

Defines an opaque data type representing a an asynchronous search.

typedef struct __SKSearch *SKSearchRef;

SKSummaryRef

Defines an opaque data type representing summarization information.

typedef struct __SKSummary *SKSummaryRef;

SKDocumentID

Defines an opaque data type representing a lightweight document identifier.

typedef CFIndex SKDocumentID;

SKSearchResultsRef

Deprecated. Use asynchronous searching with SKSearchCreate instead, which does not employ search groups.

typedef struct __SKSearchResults *SKSearchResultsRef;

SKSearchGroupRef

Deprecated. Use asynchronous searching with SKSearchCreate instead, which does not employ search groups.

typedef struct __SKSearchGroup *SKSearchGroupRef;

Constants

Text Analysis Keys

Each of these constants is an optional key in a Search Kit index’s text analysis properties dictionary. The constant descriptions describe the corresponding values for each of these keys. These keys are declared in the Analysis.h header file.

   
const CFStringRef kSKMinTermLength;
const CFStringRef kSKStopWords;
const CFStringRef kSKSubstitutions;
const CFStringRef kSKMaximumTerms;
const CFStringRef kSKProximityIndexing;
const CFStringRef kSKTermChars;
const CFStringRef kSKStartTermChars;
const CFStringRef kSKEndTermChars;

Constants

kSKMinTermLength

The minimum term length to index. Specified as a CFNumber object. If this optional key is not present, Search Kit indexing defaults to a minimum term length of 1.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

kSKStopWords

A set of stopwords—words not to index. Specified as a CFSet object. There is no default stopword list. You must supply your own.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

kSKSubstitutions

A dictionary of term substitutions—terms that differ in their character strings but that match during a search. Specified as a CFDictionary object.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

kSKMaximumTerms

The maximum number of number unique terms to index in each document. Specified as a CFNumber object.

Search Kit indexes from the beginning of a document. When it has indexed the first n unique terms, it stops.

The default number of maximum terms, which applies if you do not provide a number, is 2000.

To tell Search Kit to index all the terms in each document without limit, specify a value of 0.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

kSKProximityIndexing

A Boolean flag indicating whether or not Search Kit should use proximity indexing. The flag can be a 0 or kCFBoolenFalse value (for false) or a 1 or kCFBooleanTrue value (for true). Proximity indexing is available only for inverted indexes—that is, indexes of type kSKIndexInverted.

Use proximity indexing to support phrase searching. If this key is not present in an index’s text analysis properties dictionary, Search Kit defaults to not adding proximity information to the index.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

kSKTermChars

Additional valid starting-position “word” characters for indexing and querying. The corresponding value, a CFString object, specifies the additional valid “word” characters that you want to be considered as valid starting characters of terms for indexing and querying. “Word” characters are contrasted with nonword characters, such as spaces.

The value of kSKStartTermChars, if this key is present, overrides the value of kSKTermChars for the first character of a term.

By default, Search Kit considers alphanumeric characters as valid starting characters for terms, and considers all others (including the underscore character) to be nonword characters.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

kSKStartTermChars

Additional valid starting-position “word” characters for indexing and querying. The corresponding value, a CFString object, specifies the additional valid “word” characters that you want to be considered as valid starting characters of terms for indexing and querying. “Word” characters are contrasted with nonword characters, such as spaces.

The value of kSKStartTermChars, if this key is present, overrides the value of kSKTermChars for the first character of a term.

By default, Search Kit considers alphanumeric characters as valid starting characters for terms, and considers all others (including the underscore character) to be nonword characters.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

kSKEndTermChars

Additional valid last-position “word” characters for indexing and querying. The corresponding value, a CFString object, specifies the additional valid “word” characters that you want to be considered as valid ending characters of terms for indexing and querying. “Word” characters are contrasted with nonword characters, such as spaces.

The value of kSKEndTermChars, if this key is present, overrides the value of kSKTermChars for the last character of a term.

By default, Search Kit considers alphanumeric characters as valid ending characters for terms, and considers all others (including the underscore character) to be nonword characters.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

SKDocumentIndexState

The indexing state of a document.

enum SKDocumentIndexState {
   kSKDocumentStateNotIndexed  = 0,
   kSKDocumentStateIndexed     = 1,
   kSKDocumentStateAddPending  = 2,
   kSKDocumentStateDeletePending= 3
};

Constants

kSKDocumentStateNotIndexed

Specifies that the document is not indexed.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

kSKDocumentStateIndexed

Specifies that the document is indexed.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

kSKDocumentStateAddPending

Specifies that the document is not in the index but will be added after the index is flushed or closed.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

kSKDocumentStateDeletePending

Specifies that the document is in the index but will be deleted after the index is flushed or closed.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

SKSearchOptions

Specifies the search options available for the SKSearchCreate function.

typedef UInt32 SKSearchOptions;
enum SKSearchType {
   kSKSearchOptionDefault = 0,
   kSKSearchOptionNoRelevanceScores = 1L << 0,
   kSKSearchOptionSpaceMeansOR = 1L << 1
   kSKSearchOptionFindSimilar = 1L << 2
};

Constants

kSKSearchOptionDefault

Default search options include:

• Relevance scores will be computed

• Spaces in a query are interpreted as Boolean AND operators.

• Do not use similarity searching.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.

kSKSearchOptionNoRelevanceScores

This option saves time during a search by suppressing the computation of relevance scores.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.

kSKSearchOptionSpaceMeansOR

This option alters query behavior so that spaces are interpreted as Boolean OR operators.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.

kSKSearchOptionFindSimilar

This option alters query behavior so that Search Kit returns references to documents that are similar to an example text string. When this option is specified, Search Kit ignores all query operators.

Available in OS X v10.4 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.

SKIndexType

Specifies the category of an index.

enum SKIndexType {
   kSKIndexUnknown         = 0,
   kSKIndexInverted        = 1,
   kSKIndexVector          = 2,
   kSKIndexInvertedVector  = 3
};

Constants

kSKIndexUnknown

Specifies an unknown index type.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

kSKIndexInverted

Specifies an inverted index, mapping terms to documents.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

kSKIndexVector

Specifies a vector index, mapping documents to terms.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

kSKIndexInvertedVector

Specifies an index type with all the capabilities of an inverted and a vector index.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKIndex.h.

Deprecated Text Analysis Keys

Search Kit ignores the kSKLanguageTypes constant. It determines language directly by document content.

   
const CFStringRef kSKLanguageTypes;

Constants

kSKLanguageTypes

Deprecated—Search Kit ignores this constant.

In releases of OS X previous to version 10.4, each string in this key’s corresponding value specifies a language to use for indexing. Each such string is a two character ISO 639-1 code. For example, 'en' for English, 'ja' for Japanese, and so on. If this key is not present, Search Kit uses the OS X preferences system to determine the primary language from the user’s locale.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Deprecated in OS X v10.4.

Declared in SKAnalysis.h.

Deprecated Search Keys

Search Kit ignores the constants in this group. Use asynchronous searching with SKSearchCreate instead, which uses query syntax to determine search type.

enum SKSearchType {
   kSKSearchRanked         = 0,
   kSKSearchBooleanRanked  = 1,
   kSKSearchRequiredRanked = 2,
   kSKSearchPrefixRanked   = 3
};

Constants

kSKSearchRanked

Deprecated. Specifies a basic ranked search.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.

kSKSearchBooleanRanked

Deprecated. Specifies a query that can include Boolean operators including '|', '&', '!', '(', and ')'.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.

kSKSearchRequiredRanked

Deprecated. Specifies a query that can include required ('+') or excluded ('-') terms.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.

kSKSearchPrefixRanked

Deprecated. Specifies a prefix-based search, which matches terms that begin with the query string.

Available in OS X v10.3 and later.

Declared in SKSearch.h.