This section provides a condensed overview of Verity topics. Topics are discussed in detail in Chapter 8, “Verity Topics.”
A topic is a grouping of information related to a concept or subject area. With topic definitions in place, a user can perform searches on the topic instead of having to write queries with complex syntax.
The user creates topics, which can be combinations of words and phrases, Verity operators and modifiers, and weight values. Then, any user can query the topic.
Before you create topics, determine your application requirements, and establish standards for naming conventions and for the location of the following:
Outline files – contains the topic definitions. Each topic has its own outline file.
Topic set directories – contains the compiled topic. Each topic has its own topic set directory.
Knowledge base map file – contains pointers to the topic set directories.
To implement topics, perform the following steps:
Create one or more outline input files to define your topics (see “Creating an outline file”). Each outline file is used to populate one topic set.
Create and populate a topic set directory, using the mktopics utility (see “Creating a topic set directory”). The mktopics utility is located in $SYBASE/$SYBASE_FTS/verity/<verity_platform_directory>/bin.
Each topic set directory is populated based on one topic outline input file.
Create a knowledge base map, specifying the locations of one or more topic set directories (see “Creating a knowledge base map”).
Set the knowledge_base configuration parameter to point to the location of the knowledge base map (see “Defining the location of the knowledge base map”).
Execute queries against defined topics.
The following sample files illustrate the topics feature:
sample_text_topics.otl is a sample outline file.
sample_text_topics.kbm is a sample knowledge base map.
sample_text_topics.sql issues queries using defined topics.
These files are in the $SYBASE/$SYBASE_FTS/sample/scripts directory.
