Table of Contents
Koha implements the Search/Retrieve via URL (SRU) protocol. More information about the protocol itself can be found at http://www.loc.gov/standards/sru/. The version implemented is version 1.1.
If you want to have information about the implementation of SRU on a given server, you should have access to the Explain file using a request to the server without any parameter. Like <http://myserver.com:9999/biblios/>. The response from the server is an XML file that should look like the following and will give you information about the default settings of the SRU server.
<zs:explainResponse>
<zs:version>1.1</zs:version>
<zs:record>
<zs:recordSchema>http://explain.z3950.org/dtd/2.0/</zs:recordSchema>
<zs:recordPacking>xml</zs:recordPacking>
<zs:recordData>
<explain xml:base="zebradb/explain-biblios.xml">
<!--
try stylesheet url: http://./?stylesheet=docpath/sru2.xsl
-->
<serverInfo protocol="SRW/SRU/Z39.50">
<host>biblibre</host>
<port>9999</port>
<database>biblios</database>
</serverInfo>
<databaseInfo>
<title lang="en" primary="true">Koha 3 Bibliographic SRU/SRW/Z39.50 server</title>
<description lang="en" primary="true">Koha 3 Bibliographic Server</description>
<links>
<sru>http://biblibre:9999</sru>
</links>
</databaseInfo>
<indexInfo>
<set name="cql" identifier="info:srw/cql-context-set/1/cql-v1.1">
<title>CQL Standard Set</title>
</set>
<index search="true" scan="true" sort="false">
<title lang="en">CQL Server Choice</title>
<map>
<name set="cql">serverChoice</name>
</map>
<map>
<attr type="1" set="bib1">text</attr>
</map>
</index>
<index search="true" scan="true" sort="false">
<title lang="en">CQL All</title>
<map>
<name set="cql">all</name>
</map>
<map>
<attr type="1" set="bib1">text</attr>
</map>
</index>
<!-- Record ID index -->
<index search="true" scan="true" sort="false">
<title lang="en">Record ID</title>
<map>
<name set="rec">id</name>
</map>
<map>
<attr type="1" set="bib1">rec:id</attr>
<attr type="4" set="bib1">3</attr>
</map>
</index>
This url : http://myserver.com:9999/biblios?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=reefs is composed of the following elements:
base url of the SRU server : http://myserver.com:9999/biblios?
search part with the 3 required parameters : version, operation and query. The parameters within the search part should be of the key=value form, and can be combined with the & character.
One can add optional parameters to the query, for instance maximumRecords indicating the maximum number of records to be returned by the server. So http://myserver.com:9999/biblios?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=reefs&maximumRecords=5 will only get the first 5 results results from the server.
http://www.loc.gov/standards/sru/sru1-1archive/search-retrieve-operation.html gives more details about the search operations and in particular the list of optional parameters for searching.
The "operation" key can take two values: scan or searchRetrieve.
If operation=searchRetrieve, then the search key should be query. As in : operation=searchRetrieve&query=reefs
If operation=scan, then the search key should be scanClause. As in : operation=scan&scanClause=reefs
etc/zebradb/biblios/etc/bib1.att defines Zebra/3950 indexes that exist on your system. For instance you'll see that we have indexes for Subject and for Title: att 21 Subject and att 4 Title respectively.
In the pqf.properties file located under etc/zebradb/pqf.properties I see that an access point already uses my Subject index (index.dc.subject = 1=21) while another uses my Title index (index.dc.title = 1=4) I know this is my Subject index because as I've seen just before in my bib1.att file, it's called with =1=21 in Z3950: so index.dc.subject = 1=21 correctly points to my Subject index. And Title was called with 1=4 so index.dc.title = 1=4 correctly points to my Title index. I can now construct my query just like I would in a search box, just preceding it with the "query" key: query=Subject=reefs and Title=coral searches "reefs" in the subject and "coral" in the title. The full url would be http://myserver.com:9999/biblios?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=Subject=reefs and Title=coral If I want to limit the result set to just 5 records, I can do http://myserver.com:9999/biblios?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=Subject=reefs and Title=coral&maximumRecords=5
I can also play with truncate, relations, etc. Those are also defined in my pqf.properties file. I can see for instance the position properties defined as:
position.first = 3=1 6=1
# "first in field"
position.any = 3=3 6=1
# "any position in field"
So as an example if I want "coral" to be at the beginning of the title, I can do this query : http://myserver.com:9999/biblios?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=Title=coral first
My search for http://univ_lyon3.biblibre.com:9999/biblios?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=coral reefs&maximumRecords=1 retrieves just on record. The response looks like this:
<zs:searchRetrieveResponse>
<zs:version>1.1</zs:version>
<zs:numberOfRecords>1</zs:numberOfRecords>
<zs:records>
<zs:record>
<zs:recordPacking>xml</zs:recordPacking>
<zs:recordData>
<record xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim http://www.loc.gov/ standards/marcxml/schema/MARC21slim.xsd">
<leader> cam a22 4500</leader>
<datafield tag="010" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">2-603-01193-6</subfield>
<subfield code="b">rel.</subfield>
<subfield code="d">159 F</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="020" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">FR</subfield>
<subfield code="b">00065351</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="101" ind1="1" ind2=" ">
<subfield code="c">ita</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="105" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">a z 00|y|</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="106" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">r</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="100" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">20091130 frey50 </subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="200" ind1="1" ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Guide des récifs coralliens / A Guide to Coral Reefs</subfield>
<subfield code="b">Texte imprimé</subfield>
<subfield code="e">la faune sous-marine des coraux</subfield>
<subfield code="f">A. et A. Ferrari</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="210" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Lausanne</subfield>
<subfield code="a">Paris</subfield>
<subfield code="c">Delachaux et Niestlé</subfield>
<subfield code="d">cop. 2000</subfield>
<subfield code="e">impr. en Espagne</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="215" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">287 p.</subfield>
<subfield code="c">ill. en coul., couv. ill. en coul.</subfield>
<subfield code="d">20 cm</subfield>
</datafield>
......
<idzebra>
<size>4725</size>
<localnumber>2</localnumber>
<filename>/tmp/nw10BJv9Pk/upd_biblio/exported_records</filename>
</idzebra>
</record>
</zs:recordData>
<zs:recordPosition>1</zs:recordPosition>
</zs:record>
</zs:records>
</zs:searchRetrieveResponse>