Searching

Episerver Find excels in traditional, free-text search scenarios and data-centric queries involving exact matching using filters. Find also supports data aggregation using facets. This topic introduces search and filtering in Find.

Note: When querying for objects inheriting IContent , the GetContentResultextensions should be used. For information, see GetContentResult.

How it works

You search and query using an instance of the IClient interface. This, along with extension methods, offers a traditional, object-oriented API and convenient fluent API. Most documentation found here covers the fluent API.

Searching

You can execute a free-text search for objects of a specific via the GetResult method, which returns:

An object with result items
The number of documents that match the search query
Facets
Information about execution time

var searchResult = client.Search<BlogPost>()
                        .For("Beethoven")
                        .GetResult();

int numberOfDocsMatchingTheSearch = searchResult.TotalMatching;
int executionTime = searchResult.ServerDuration;
FacetResults facets = searchResult.Facets;
IEnumerable<SearchResultItem<BlogPost>> hits = searchResult.Hits;

Each hit object contains the indexed object, its ID, highlights (if requested), and its score.

var searchResult = client.Search<BlogPost>()
                        .For("Beethoven")
                        .GetResult();

foreach (var hit in searchResult.Hits)
{
    string id = hit.Id;
    BlogPost item = hit.Item;
    Highlights highlights = hit.Highlights;
    double? score = hit.Score;
}

Unless specified, searches are performed over all indexed properties, including nested properties. You can specify which properties to search.

client.Search<BlogPost>()
    .For("Beethoven")
    .InFields(
        x => x.Title, 
        x => x.Tags,
        x => x.Author.Name);

Filtering

The service and client API also supports filtering. If applied to a free text query, filtering restricts search results to those matching the filters.

client.Search<BlogPost>()
    .For("Beethoven")
    .Filter(x => x.Tags.Match("Music"));

If applied without a free text query, filters let you query for objects in an exact manner, similar to traditional database queries.

client.Search<BlogPost>()
    .Filter(x => x.Tags.Match("Music"));

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