Rust WASM tool to manipulate HTML searching for an input search term. Searchlite will wrap matching text elements in a pair of HTML <mark> tags. Browsers will highlight these matches by default.

Module can be used within a web app or in serverless middleware to highlight search terms in an HTML response.

Uses html5ever and aho-corasick Rust crates under the hood.

Compile WASM

1. Clone the project and change into the project directory. Then run these commands:

cargo install wasm-pack # skip if you already have it installed
wasm-pack build --target web

2. Copy the generated pkg folder into your JavaScript or TypeScript project.
3. Import and use the code in one of your project source files (expected output is as shown in previous section):

• Generate highlighted HTML

highlight_search_terms takes two arguments: the input HTML and the search term. Separate multiple search terms with a space (e.g. "apple pear").

import init, { highlight_search_terms as highlight } from "pkg/searchlite.js";

await init();

// alternative if top level await is not available
(async () => {
  await init();
})();

const highlightedHtml = highlight(
  "<h2>Heading</h2><p>Nobody likes maple in their apple flavoured Snapple. APPLE</p>",
  "apple",
);

Output (highlightedHTML):

<h2>Heading</h2>
<p>
  Nobody likes maple in their <mark id="search-match">apple</mark> flavoured
  Sn<mark>apple</mark>. <mark>APPLE</mark>
</p>

Note the id added to the first search match. You can use this to scroll the first match into view.

🗺️ Roadmap

No firm course laid in.

• Possibly add stemmer, though this might be better handled externally. A stemmer will match on related words; film and filming for an input of films as an example. The Porter Algorithm is often used for this.
• Possibly add a utility function to generate a match snippet for use in result pages that show matches across various documents.

☎️ Reach Out

Feel free to jump into the Rodney Lab matrix chat room.