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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SOLR-1599?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel
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Graham Poulter updated SOLR-1599:
---------------------------------

    Description: 
In Solr 1.4, the IDF (Inverse Document Frequency) is calculated on all of the 
documents in an index.  This introduces relevance problems when using a single 
schema to store multiple entity types, for example to support "search for 
tracks" and "search for artists".   The ranking for search on the _name_ field 
of _track_ entities will be (much?) more accurate if the IDF for the name field 
does not include counts from _artist_ entities.  The effect on ranking would be 
most pronounced for query terms that have a low document frequency for _track_ 
entities but a high frequency for _artist_ entities.

The current work-around to make the IDF be entity-specific is to use a separate 
Solr core for each entity type sharing the schema - and repeating the process 
of copying solrconfig.xml and schema.xml to all the cores.  This would be more 
complicated with replication, and even more complicated with index 
distribution, because you must now maintain a core for _artists_ and a core for 
_tracks_ on each node.

David Smiley, author of "Solr 1.4 Enterprise Search Server", has filed 
SOLR-1158, where he suggests calculating _numDocs_ after the application of 
filters.  He recognises however that the document frequency (DF_t) for each 
query term in a _track_ search would also needs to exclude _artist_ entities 
from the DF_t total to get the correct IDF_t=log(N/DF_t).   DF_t must be 
calculated at index time, when Solr does not know what filters will be applied.

I suggest having a metadata field _entitytype_ specified on submitting a batch 
of documents. The the schema would specify a list of allowed entity types and a 
default entity type. For example, document could say either entitytype="track" 
or entitytype="artist".  Each each entity type has an independent set of 
document frequencies, so the term "foo" will have a DF for entitytype="artist" 
and a different DF for entitytype="track".   This might be implemented by 
instantiating a separate Lucene index for each configured entity type.  
Filtering on entitytype="artist" would be implemented by searching only the 
_artist_ index, analogous to searching only on the _artist_ core in the 
multi-core workaround.

With this solution (entity type metadata field implemented with separate Lucene 
indeces) a single Solr core can support many different entity types that share 
a common schema but use partially overlapping subsets of fields, instead of 
having to configure maintain, replicate and distribute separate solr cores for 
every entity type.

  was:
In Solr 1.4, the IDF (Inverse Document Frequency) is calculated on all of the 
documents in an index.  This introduces relevance problems when using a single 
schema to store multiple entity types, for example to support "search for 
tracks" and "search for artists".   The ranking for search on the _name_ field 
of _track_ entities will be (much?) more accurate if the IDF for the name field 
does not include counts from _artist_ entities.  The effect on ranking would be 
most pronounced for query terms that have a low document frequency for _track_ 
entities but a high frequency for _artist_ entities.

The current work-around to make the IDF be entity-specific is to use a separate 
Solr core for each entity type sharing the schema - and repeating the process 
of copying solrconfig.xml and schema.xml to all the cores.  This would be more 
complicated with replication, and even more complicated with index 
distribution, because you must now maintain a core for _artists_ and a core for 
_tracks_ on each node.

David Smiley, author of "Solr 1.4 Enterprise Search Server", has filed 
SOLR-1158, where he suggests calculating _numDocs_ after the application of 
filters.  He recognises however that the document frequency (DF_t) for each 
query term in a _track_ search would also needs to exclude _artist_ entities 
from the DF_t total to get the correct IDF_t=log(N/DF_t).   DF_t must be 
calculated at index time, when Solr does not know what filters will be applied.

I suggest using a metadata field _entitytype_ specified on submitting a batch 
of documents, where the schema specifies the list of allowed entity types. In 
the example the document could specify either entitytype="track" or 
entitytype="artist" (defaulting to _track_).  During indexing each entity type 
has its set of document frequencies, so the term "foo" will have a DF for 
entitytype="artist" and a different DF for entitytype="track".   This might be 
implemented by instantiating a separate Lucene index for each configured entity 
type.  Filtering on entitytype="artist" would then be implemented by searching 
only the _artist_ index, analogous to searching only on the _artist_ core in 
the multi-core workaround.

With this solution (entity type metadata field implemented with separate Lucene 
indeces) a single Solr core can support many different entity types that share 
a common schema but use partially overlapping subsets of fields, instead of 
having to configure maintain, replicate and distribute for every entity type.


> Improve IDF and relevance by separately indexing different entity types 
> sharing a common schema
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: SOLR-1599
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SOLR-1599
>             Project: Solr
>          Issue Type: New Feature
>          Components: Schema and Analysis
>            Reporter: Graham Poulter
>   Original Estimate: 504h
>  Remaining Estimate: 504h
>
> In Solr 1.4, the IDF (Inverse Document Frequency) is calculated on all of the 
> documents in an index.  This introduces relevance problems when using a 
> single schema to store multiple entity types, for example to support "search 
> for tracks" and "search for artists".   The ranking for search on the _name_ 
> field of _track_ entities will be (much?) more accurate if the IDF for the 
> name field does not include counts from _artist_ entities.  The effect on 
> ranking would be most pronounced for query terms that have a low document 
> frequency for _track_ entities but a high frequency for _artist_ entities.
> The current work-around to make the IDF be entity-specific is to use a 
> separate Solr core for each entity type sharing the schema - and repeating 
> the process of copying solrconfig.xml and schema.xml to all the cores.  This 
> would be more complicated with replication, and even more complicated with 
> index distribution, because you must now maintain a core for _artists_ and a 
> core for _tracks_ on each node.
> David Smiley, author of "Solr 1.4 Enterprise Search Server", has filed 
> SOLR-1158, where he suggests calculating _numDocs_ after the application of 
> filters.  He recognises however that the document frequency (DF_t) for each 
> query term in a _track_ search would also needs to exclude _artist_ entities 
> from the DF_t total to get the correct IDF_t=log(N/DF_t).   DF_t must be 
> calculated at index time, when Solr does not know what filters will be 
> applied.
> I suggest having a metadata field _entitytype_ specified on submitting a 
> batch of documents. The the schema would specify a list of allowed entity 
> types and a default entity type. For example, document could say either 
> entitytype="track" or entitytype="artist".  Each each entity type has an 
> independent set of document frequencies, so the term "foo" will have a DF for 
> entitytype="artist" and a different DF for entitytype="track".   This might 
> be implemented by instantiating a separate Lucene index for each configured 
> entity type.  Filtering on entitytype="artist" would be implemented by 
> searching only the _artist_ index, analogous to searching only on the 
> _artist_ core in the multi-core workaround.
> With this solution (entity type metadata field implemented with separate 
> Lucene indeces) a single Solr core can support many different entity types 
> that share a common schema but use partially overlapping subsets of fields, 
> instead of having to configure maintain, replicate and distribute separate 
> solr cores for every entity type.

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