Overview

Query completion functionality is provided by the autocomplete module. This module provides the back end to support a number of different providers for query completion (autocompletion) suggestions.

View incoming links.

• Attivio Modules ,
• Attivio Platform 5.6.2 Release Notes ,
• Attivio Platform 5.6.3 Release Notes ,
• REST Auto Complete API

Attivio Platform ships with three default query-completion providers:

Example AutocompleteDictionaryProvider Configuration:

<fac:autocomplete>
  <fac:providers>
    <fac:provider name="dictionaryProvider" class="com.attivio.autocomplete.providers.AutocompleteDictionaryProvider">
      <fac:property name="defaultLocale" value="en"/>
    </fac:provider>
  </fac:providers>
</fac:autocomplete>

Example EntityDictionaryProvider Configuration:

<fac:autocomplete>
  <fac:providers>
    <fac:provider name="dictionaryProvider" class="com.attivio.autocomplete.providers.EntityDictionaryProvider">
      <fac:property name="dictionaryName" value="MyAutocompleteDictionary"/>
      <fac:property name="defaultLocale" value="en"/>
    </fac:provider>
  </fac:providers>
</fac:autocomplete>

Example CustomDictionaryProvider Configuration:

<fac:autocomplete>
  <fac:providers>
    <fac:provider name="dictionaryProvider" class="com.attivio.autocomplete.providers.CustomDictionaryProvider">
      <fac:property name="dictionaryFilename" value="autocomplete/dictionaries/sample.dict"/>
      <fac:property name="partialMatches" value="true"/>
      <fac:property name="caseSensitive" value="false"/>
    </fac:provider>
  </fac:providers>
</fac:autocomplete>

AggregateProvider

The AggregateProvider merges results from other providers. You can merge the results through a variety of different mixing strategies.

At query time, you can specify:

• which other autocomplete providers to aggregate over
• how many suggestions to retrieve from each other provider
• how many suggestions to retrieve total (across all providers)
• a variety of mixing strategies: simple (i.e. grouped), roundrobin, or alphabetical

Upon mixing, duplicate suggestions are omitted (unless the mixing strategy is simple). The purpose of the simple strategy is to keep the results from each provider segregated (effectively the opposite of mixing), assuming that de-duplication is not wanted.

Configuration

You must configure the AggregateProvider with a list of other providers to make them available for selection at query time.

Example of an AggregateProvider that consists of two individual EntityDictionaryProviders:

<fac:autocomplete>
  <fac:providers>
    <fac:provider name="source1" class="com.attivio.autocomplete.providers.EntityDictionaryProvider">
      <fac:property name="dictionaryName" value="entityDictionary1"/>
      <fac:property name="defaultLocale" value="en"/>
    </fac:provider>

    <fac:provider name="source2" class="com.attivio.autocomplete.providers.EntityDictionaryProvider">
      <fac:property name="dictionaryName" value="entityDictionary2"/>
      <fac:property name="defaultLocale" value="en"/>
    </fac:provider>
  </fac:providers> 
 
  <fac:aggregateProviders>
    <fac:aggregateProvider name="aggregate">
      <fac:provider name="source1"/>
      <fac:provider name="source2"/>
    </fac:aggregateProvider>
  </fac:aggregateProviders>
</fac:autocomplete>

Query Parameters

Example Request

{
  "query": "foo",
  "rows": "10",
  "restParams": { 
    "subhits": ["2"],
    "providers": ["source1,source2"], 
    "mixer": ["roundrobin"] 
  }
}

Example Output

Each suggestion in the final list will contain a "label" and "value" (the suggested completion) and "category" (the provider which returned the suggestion).

http://localhost:17000/rest/autocompleteApi/richCgi/aggregate?q=g&hits=10&subhits=2&providers=source1,source2&mixer=roundrobin

[
{"label":"gary","value":"gary","category":"source1"},
{"label":"george","value":"george","category":"source2"},
{"label":"geoff","value":"geoff","category":"source1"}
]

In this example, source1 resulted in two suggestions, and source2 resulted in one suggestion. They were mixed by roundrobin.

Limitations

You cannot use the "simple" and "simpleJsonp" endpoints as they can only accept "q" and "hits" parameters. When using the AggregateProvider, you must use either the "richCgi" or "richPost" endpoints. 

Writing Additional Providers

Additional providers can be easily added by customers by implementing the following interface and then registering those providers in their features file.

/** Interface for beans that will provide suggestions for user queries. */
public interface AutoCompleteProvider {

  /** Get a list of query auto complete suggestions for the specified term.  
   *  It should be assumed that this method will be called for each end user keystroke.  
   *  Performance of the method should be designed accordingly. 
   *
   * @return a Map of query values to display values for each suggestion with each suggestion possibly having additional metadata
   */
  List<AutoCompleteSuggestion> getSuggestions(QueryRequest req);

}

Client Usage of Auto Complete

The REST Auto Complete API document describes how to use the various output formats of the autocomplete module.