Suppose I have a special data search type (something different than a string or numeric value) that I want to integrate into the Solr server. For example, suppose I wanted to implement a KD-tree as a filter that would integrate with standard Solr filters and queries. I might want to say "find all of the documents in the index with the word 'tree' in them that are within a certain distance of a particular document in the KD-tree". Let me add that I'm not really looking for a KD-Tree implementation for Solr; I just assume that a fair number of people will know what a KD-tree is and so, have some idea that I'm talking about adding a new data type (different than string, long, etc.) that Solr will need to be able to index and search with. It's important that the new data type should integrate with the existing standard Solr data types for searching purposes.
First, is there a way to build and specify a plugin that provides Solr both the indexer and search interfaces and therefore hides the internal details of what's going on in the search from Solr so it just thinks it's another search type? Or, would I have to hack Solr in a lot of places to add my custom data type in? Second, if the interface(s) exists to add in a new data type, is there documentation (tutorial, examples, etc.) anywhere on how to do this. Or, is my only option to dig into the Solr code? Mostly, I'm looking for some links or suggestions on where to start looking. I doubt this subject is simple enough to fit into an email post (though I'd be happy to be surprised :) ). You can assume Solr 4.0 if that makes things easier. You can also assume that I have some familiarity with Lucene (though I haven't hacked that code either). Hopefully, I've explained this well enough so that people know what I'm looking for. Cheers Scott
