websoc-fuzzy-search

A fuzzy search module for various course (including department, GE category) and instructor data from UCI.

The module name is a misnomer, since we don't get our data from WebSoc at all (but rather from the Catalogue), but it's stuck.

Installation

npm install --save websoc-fuzzy-search

or

yarn add websoc-fuzzy-search

or

pnpm install websoc-fuzzy-search

Documentation

Types

CourseLevel

CourseLevel is an integer literal that holds one of the following values.

| Literal Value | Meaning | | :-----------: | :---------------------------------------: | | 0 | Lower Division courses (1-99) | | 1 | Upper Division courses (100-199) | | 2 | Graduate/Professional Only courses (200+) |

GECategory

GECategory is a string literal that holds one of the following values.

| Literal Value | Meaning | | :-----------: | :----------------------------: | | GE-1A | Lower Division Writing | | GE-1B | Upper Division Writing | | GE-2 | Science and Technology | | GE-3 | Social and Behavioral Sciences | | GE-4 | Arts and Humanities | | GE-5A | Quantitative Literacy | | GE-5B | Formal Reasoning | | GE-6 | Language other than English | | GE-7 | Multicultural Studies | | GE-8 | International/Global Issues |

ResultType

ResultType is a string literal that holds one of the following values. The internal value is used to sort the final response.

| Literal Value | Internal Value | | :-----------: | :------------: | | GE_CATEGORY | 4 | | DEPARTMENT | 3 | | COURSE | 2 | | INSTRUCTOR | 1 |

FilterOptions

FilterOptions represents any desired Metadata attributes in the final result(s). It has four possible fields, all of which are optional.

A list of acceptable values for departments and schools can be found in the source data here.

| Field | Type | Description | | :-----------: | :-------------: | :---------------------------------------------------: | | courseLevel | CourseLevel[] | The course level(s) to match. (Courses only) | | geList | GECategory[] | The GE categor(y/ies) to match. (Courses only) | | department | string[] | The department(s) to match. (Courses and Instructors) | | school | string[] | The school(s) to match. (Courses and Instructors) |

SearchParams

SearchParams represents the parameters for which to search. It has four possible fields, all of which are optional.

| Field | Type | Description | | :-------------: | :-------------: | :---------------------------------------------------: | | query | string | The search query. | | numResults | number | The maximum number of results to return. | | resultType | ResultType | Which type of result to return exclusively. | | filterOptions | FilterOptions | Any Metadata attributes the result(s) must possess. |

SearchResult

SearchResult represents a single object matched by the fuzzy search process.

| Field | Type | Description | | :--------: | :----------: | :-----------------------------------------------------: | | type | ResultType | The type of the result matched. | | name | string | The descriptive name of the result matched. | | metadata | any | Any metadata relevant to the result matched. (Optional) |

Two interfaces extend upon this interface; each has a different type for the metadata field and its own type guard function for TypeScript compatibility.

CourseMetadata

| Field | Type | Description | | :-----------: | :------------: | :-----------------------------------------------: | | department | string | The department that offers this course. | | number | string | The course number. | | geList | GECategory[] | GE categor(y/ies), if any, this course satisfies. | | courseLevel | CourseLevel | The level of this course. | | school | string | The school/academic unit this course falls under. |

InstructorMetadata

| Field | Type | Description | | :----------: | :--------: | :-----------------------------------------------: | | ucinetid | string | The instructor's UCINetID. | | school | string[] | The school(s) to which this instructor belong(s). | | department | string[] | The department to which this instructor belongs. |

Functions

search

Signature: search(params?: SearchParams): Record<string, SearchResult>

Performs a fuzzy-search query based on the parameters given (if any), and returns a mapping of unique string identifiers to SearchResult objects.

isCourseSearchResult and isInstructorSearchResult

These type guard functions are provided for TypeScript-based projects and are fairly self-explanatory.