How the Content Indexing Pages Work

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Functional Overview

The set of Web pages in the Search directory allow the user to search for material using two types of search: Simple and Advanced.

Simple Search

Simple search uses similar technology to that used in earlier versions of Microsoft Index Server. The query information is collected in Search.asp using a standard HTML form. Index Server supports a rich query language. If you installed the Index Server documentation, see the Query Language section. The query request is sent to Search.idq for processing. Search.idq works in conjunction with a file named Search.htx to produce the simple query output.

Advanced Search

Index Server provides an alternative method of issuing queries on an indexed file system. Instead of using Index Server's standard forms, you can write SQL queries in applications that use ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). In your .asp files, use the SQL Extensions to form the query, ADO to retrieve the data, and a scripting language such as Microsoft Visual Basic, Scripting Edition (VBScript) to display the data.

The SQL used with Index Server consists of extensions to the subset of SQL-92 and SQL3 that specifies queries on relational database systems. This SQL includes extensions to the SELECT statement and its FROM and WHERE clauses.

Index Server Data, ADO, and OLE DB

Because Index Server can function as an OLE DB provider, and with ADO you can consume OLE DB rowset data, you can take the results of an Index Server query and use them in a subsequent query against a different OLE DB provider (such as the ODBC Provider). For example, you can search for all the travel reports in a given directory and then submit a query against SQL Server to find the current travel budget of each trip report author.

The SQL extensions to Index Server do not support cross-data source queries; you need to issue separate queries against Index Server and (for example) the ODBC Provider to SQL Server.

How an Advanced Query Works

The user enters data into an HTML form in the AdvSearch.asp page. Once this is entered, the page posts back to itself and the data is taken from the form.

Farther down the page a new query object is instantiated (ixsso.Query) and the query string is built dynamically by VBScript running on the server.

The query is then issued by calling the CreateRecordSet method on the query object. Finally, the results are displayed using normal ADO data fetching mechanisms (checking for the end of the resultset with the EOF property and using MoveNext property).

Components Used

The only component used is the Index Server component ixsso.Query.