Exact Search

exact-search is a lightweight, 0-dependency library designed to perform exact searches on a JSON array. It allows you to specify fields to index and fields to return in the search results, making it flexible for various use cases.

Installation

To install the package, use npm:

npm install exact-search

Constructor

The createClient function is used to initialize the search client. It requires an object with the following properties:

• data: An array of objects that you want to search through.
• matchFields: An array of strings specifying which fields in the data should be indexed for searching.
• dataFields: An array of strings specifying which fields should be included in the search results.

API Parameters

• search(query: string, limit: number): Performs a search on the indexed data.
  • query: A string representing the search term.
  • limit: A number specifying the maximum number of results to return.

API Response

The search results are returned as an array of objects, each containing the following properties:

| Property | Type | Contents/Structure | Description | | -------- | ------ | ------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | match | Object | { fieldName: { data: string, index: number } } | An object containing the fields that matched the search query. Each field includes the entire original field value and the index where the match starts. | | data | Object | { fieldName: fieldValue } | An object containing the fields specified in dataFields from the original data. | | score | Number | - | A number representing the relevance of the result. The score is calculated based on the number of matches found in the matchFields and the length of the field. Specifically, it is the ratio of the number of matches to the number of words in the field. |

Example response:

[
  {
    "match": {
      "name": {
        "data": "Alice Loves",
        "index": 6
      },
      "bio": {
        "data": "Loves programming",
        "index": 0
      }
    },
    "score": 1,
    "data": {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "Alice Loves",
      "bio": "Loves programming",
      "age": 30
    }
  },
  {
    "match": {
      "bio": {
        "data": "Loves code",
        "index": 0
      }
    },
    "score": 0.5,
    "data": {
      "id": 4,
      "name": "Dave",
      "bio": "Loves code",
      "age": 35
    }
  }
]

Usage (Typescript)

Here's a basic example of how to use exact-search:

import { createClient, SearchResult } from 'exact-search';

// Define the data
const data = [
  { id: 1, name: 'Alice Loves', bio: 'Loves programming', age: 30, isActive: true },
  { id: 2, name: 'Bob', bio: 'Enjoys hiking', age: 25, isActive: false },
  { id: 3, name: 'Charlie', bio: 'Loves to travel', age: 35, isActive: true },
  { id: 4, name: 'Dave', bio: 'Loves code', age: 35, isActive: true },
];

// Define the Result type
type Result = {
  match: {
    name: string;
    bio: string;
  };
  data: {
    id: number;
    name: string;
    bio: string;
    age: number;
  };
};

// Create the search client without specifying generic parameters
const index = createClient<Result>({
  data,
  matchFields: ['name', 'bio'],
  dataFields: ['id', 'name', 'bio', 'age'],
});

// Perform a search
const searchResults: SearchResult<Result>[] = index.search('Loves', 2);

Usage (Javascript)

import { createClient } from 'exact-search';

// Define the data
const data = [
  { id: 1, name: 'Alice Loves', bio: 'Loves programming', age: 30, isActive: true },
  { id: 2, name: 'Bob', bio: 'Enjoys hiking', age: 25, isActive: false },
  { id: 3, name: 'Charlie', bio: 'Loves to travel', age: 35, isActive: true },
  { id: 4, name: 'Dave', bio: 'Loves code', age: 35, isActive: true },
];

// Create the search client without specifying generic parameters
const index = createClient({
  data,
  matchFields: ['name', 'bio'],
  dataFields: ['id', 'name', 'bio', 'age'],
});

// Perform a search
const searchResults = index.search('Loves', 10);

console.log(searchResults);