solr.net | Tech Stack Thinker

Hi Folks!

This blog post is regarding the basics of SOLR setup and using the SOLR.Net.

So, let us get started!

Download the SOLR 5.5 from below URL. (You can give it a try with latest version else first use one)

https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/5.5.0/

Extract the downloaded file to some location. In my case it is D:\learning\Search in dot net\solr-5.5.0.
Setup JAVA_HOME environment variable. To do so, follow this link.
Open CMD as admin from the SOLR bin folder

You should find solr.cmd from SOLR bin folder. Run below command from cmd

>solr.cmd start

Open the below URL in any browser

http://localhost:8983/

Run below command to create the core

>solr.cmd create -c articles

Go to http://localhost:8983/solr/#/

And refresh the page.

You should see the core created as above.

Create .NET framework console app.
Right click project node, go to nuget manager. Search for Solr.Net and install the latest stable package.
Copy below Article Class to your source file.

public class Article
    {
        [SolrUniqueKey("articleid")]
        public string CourseId { get; set; }

        [SolrField("articleTitle")]
        public string CourseTitle { get; set; }

        [SolrField("articleDescription")]
        public int DurationInSeconds { get; set; }

        [SolrField("publishDate")]
        public DateTime ReleaseDate { get; set; }

    }

Import required namespaces.
Go to below as highlighted to confirm we don’t have any data.

Write below code in your project

 class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Indexing the content");
            IndexArticles();
            Console.WriteLine("Searching the content");
        }

        private static void IndexArticles()
        {
            List<Article> allArticles = new List<Article>();
            FillAllArticles(allArticles);
            Startup.Init<Article>("http://localhost:8983/solr/articles");

            ISolrOperations<Article> solr = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<ISolrOperations<Article>>();

            foreach (Article article in allArticles)
            {
                solr.Add(article);
            }

            solr.Commit();
        }

        private static void FillAllArticles(List<Article> allArticles)
        {
            allArticles.Add(new Article { Articleid=Guid.NewGuid().ToString(), ArticleDescription="article 1 descripton", ArticleTitle="article 1 title", PublishDate=DateTime.Now});
            allArticles.Add(new Article { Articleid = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(), ArticleDescription = "article 2 descripton", ArticleTitle = "article 2 title", PublishDate = DateTime.Now });
        }
    }

Build and execute the project.
Now go back to Solr Dashboard and refresh the core. You should see the inserted data.

Now comment out the first two lines in main method

            //Console.WriteLine("Indexing the content");
            //IndexArticles();

We will now read the data

Copy below code in your main method. Build and run it in debug mode for now.

   Startup.Init<Article>("http://localhost:8983/solr/articles");

            ISolrOperations<Article> solr = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<ISolrOperations<Article>>();

            Console.WriteLine("Please enter search phrase:");
            string userInput = Console.ReadLine();

            while (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(userInput))
            {
                SolrQueryResults<Article> Articles = solr.Query(userInput);

                int i = 0;
                foreach (Article Article in Articles)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(i++ + ": " + Article.ArticleTitle + " "+ Article.ArticleDescription);
                }

                Console.WriteLine(Environment.NewLine + "Please enter search phrase:");
                userInput = Console.ReadLine();
            }

Enter search phrase and enter, you will get below error

The reason is the configuration of article fields has multiValued = true by default.

Let us disable it from the configuration itself.

Go to article managed-schema file. In my case it is D:\learning\Search in dot net\solr-5.5.0\server\solr\articles\conf\managed-schema

Provide multiValued=”false” to the above fields.

Save it.

To pick up new configuration we should restart the SOLR server. Close the cmd running the solr.
Open cmd as admin from SOLR bin folder. Run below command from cmd

>solr.cmd start

Now rerun the console application. We should be able to search.

Happy Basic Indexing and Searching!