Example 14-1 Using Faceted Navigation

The following statements create a table named products:

drop table products;

create table products(name varchar2(60), vendor varchar2(60), rating number, price number, mydate date);

The following statement inserts values into products:

insert all
 into products values ('cherry red shoes', 'first vendor', 5, 129, sysdate)
 into products values ('bright red shoes', 'first vendor', 4, 109, sysdate)
 into products values ('more red shoes', 'second vendor', 5, 129, sysdate)
 into products values ('shoes', 'third vendor', 5, 109, sysdate)
select * from dual;

The following statements create a MULTI_COLUMN_DATASTORE preference named ds to bring various other columns into the index (name) to be used as facets:

/*A MULTI_COLUMN_DATASTORE automatically adds tags by default so that the text to be indexed looks like 
'<name>cherry red shoes</name><vendor>first vendor</vendor><rating> .... '*/

exec ctx_ddl.drop_preference  ('ds')
exec ctx_ddl.create_preference('ds', 'MULTI_COLUMN_DATASTORE')
exec ctx_ddl.set_attribute    ('ds', 'COLUMNS', 'name, vendor, rating, price, mydate')

The following statements create a section group named sg and enable the optimized_for search attribute for each column to be treated as a facet:

/* A Section Group is created to specify the data type of each column (varchar2 is the default) and 
how each column that is brought into the index should be used.*/


exec ctx_ddl.drop_section_group   ('sg')
exec ctx_ddl.create_section_group ('sg', 'BASIC_SECTION_GROUP')

exec ctx_ddl.add_sdata_section    ('sg', 'vendor', 'vendor', 'VARCHAR2')
exec ctx_ddl.add_sdata_section    ('sg', 'rating', 'rating', 'NUMBER')
exec ctx_ddl.add_sdata_section    ('sg', 'price', 'price', 'NUMBER')
exec ctx_ddl.add_sdata_section    ('sg', 'mydate', 'mydate', 'DATE')

exec ctx_ddl.set_section_attribute('sg', 'vendor', 'optimized_for', 'SEARCH')
exec ctx_ddl.set_section_attribute('sg', 'rating', 'optimized_for', 'SEARCH')
exec ctx_ddl.set_section_attribute('sg', 'price',  'optimized_for', 'SEARCH')
exec ctx_ddl.set_section_attribute('sg', 'mydate', 'optimized_for', 'SEARCH')

The following statement creates an index on name and specifies the preferences by using the PARAMETERS clause:

CREATE INDEX product_index ON products (name)
INDEXTYPE IS ctxsys.context
PARAMETERS ('datastore ds section group sg');

The following statements query for a product name, ‘red shoes’ and the facets for computation can be specified. The count attribute shows the total number of items that match the query for the product. The Result Set Interface specifies various requirements, such as the top vendors that have the largest number of matching items, the lowest available prices, and the latest arrivals:

set long 500000
set pagesize 0

variable displayrs clob;

declare
  rs clob;
begin
   ctx_query.result_set('product_index', 'red shoes', '<ctx_result_set_descriptor>
	 	<count/>
	 	<group sdata="vendor" topn="5" sortby="count" order="desc">
	 	<count exact="true"/>
	 	</group>
	 	<group sdata="price" topn="3" sortby="value" order="asc">
	 	<count exact="true"/>
	 	</group>
	 	<group sdata="mydate" topn="3" sortby="value" order="desc">
	 	<count exact="true"/>
	 	</group>
	 	</ctx_result_set_descriptor>',
	 	rs);

/* Pretty-print the result set (rs) for display purposes. 
It is not required if you are going to manipulate it in XML.*/

   select xmlserialize(Document XMLType(rs) as clob indent size=2) into :displayrs from dual;
   dbms_lob.freetemporary(rs);
end;
/
select :displayrs from dual;

The following is output:

<ctx_result_set>                                                                
  <count>3</count>                                                              

  <groups sdata="VENDOR">                                                       
    <group value="first vendor">                                                  
      <count>2</count>                                                          
    </group>                                                                    
    <group value="second vendor">                                                    
      <count>1</count>                                                          
    </group>                                                                    
  </groups>                                                                     

  <groups sdata="PRICE">                                                        
    <group value="109">                                                         
      <count>1</count>                                                          
    </group>                                                                    
    <group value="129">                                                         
      <count>2</count>                                                          
    </group>                                                                    
  </groups>                                                                     

  <groups sdata="MYDATE">                                                       
    <group value="2017-12-06 05:44:54">                                         
      <count>3</count>                                                          
    </group>                                                                    
  </groups>                                                                     
</ctx_result_set>

This example shows the grouping of a number facet if bucketby is set to single, where mytab_idx is the name of the index, text is the query, and group SDATA requests the facets:

begin
	 ctx_query.result_set('mytab_idx', 'text',
                        '<ctx_result_set_descriptor>
	 <group sdata="sec01" topn = "4" sortby = "value" order="asc" bucketby="single">
	 </group>
	 </ctx_result_set_descriptor>'
	 :rs);
end;

The following is a sample output showing that the values are listed in alphabetical order because the sortby attribute is set to value instead of count. The values are also displayed in ascending order (ABC to XYZ) because the order attribute is set to asc. Only four values are displayed because the topn attribute is set to 4.

<ctx_result_set>
	 <group SDATA="SEC01"> 
	 	 <group value="ABC"><count>2</count>
	 </group>
	 	 <group value="DEF"><count>1</count>
	 </group>
	 	 <group value="GHI"><count>10</count>
	 </group>
	 	 <group value="XYZ"><count>1</count>
	 </group>
</ctx_result_set>