User Guide

554 Chapter 24: Building a Search Interface
3. Enter a path for the directory location of the new collection; for example,
C:\CFusionMX7\verity\collections\.
By default in the server configuration, ColdFusion stores collections in
cf_root\verity\collections\ in Windows and in cf_root/verity/collections on UNIX. In the
multiserver configuration, the default location for collections is
cf_webapp_root/verity/collections. In the J2EE configuration, the default location for
collections is verity_root/verity/collections, where verity_root is the directory in which you
installed Verity.
Note: This is the location for the collection, not for the files that you will search.
4. (Optional) Select a language other than English for the collection from the Language drop-
down list.
For more information on selecting a language, see “Specifying a language” on page 551.
5. (Optional) Select Enable Category Support to create a Verity Parametric collection.
For more information on using categories, see “Narrowing searches using categories”
on page 567.
6. Click Create Collection.
The name and full path of the new collection appears in the list of Verity Collections.
You have successfully created an empty collection. A collection becomes populated with data
when you index it. For more information, see the next section, “About indexing a collection”
on page 554.
About indexing a collection
In order for information to be searched, it must be indexed. Indexing extracts both meaning and
structure from unstructured information by indexing each document that you specify into a
separate Verity collection that contains a complete list of all the words used in a given document
along with metadata about that document. Indexed collections include information such as word
proximity, metadata about physical file system addresses, and URLs of documents.
When you index databases and other record sets that you generated using a query, Verity creates a
collection that normalizes both the structured and unstructured data. Search requests then check
these collections rather than scanning the actual documents and database fields. This provides a
faster search of information, regardless of the file type and whether the source is structured or
unstructured.
Just as with creating a collection, you can index a collection either programmatically or using the
ColdFusion MX Administrator. Use the following guidelines to determine which method to use:
Use the Administrator Use the cfindex tag
To index document files To index ColdFusion query results
When the collection does not require
frequent updates
When the collection requires frequent updates