Thunderstone Search Appliance Manual

Group By

Syntax: several select boxes and radiobuttons

The Group By options control how and when to show an additional set of group-by (clustered or faceted) results for Parametric Search fields. Up to 50 fields may be selected. For each field selected, the search results' summary will contain an additional set of results: a list of distinct values of that field from the results that match the query, with a count of results for that value and a link to search for that value.

The Order By field determines how to order the Group By results: by count or field, ascending or descending.

The Max field determines the maximum number of Group By results to show. The default (if empty) is the same as Results per Page. In a meta search, if target profiles have different Max values for the same-name Field, an arbitrary target profile's Max is chosen and used.

The Length field determines the maximum length to use for any of the Group By results. Results longer than the value specified here will be truncated. If empty, it defaults to 14 characters.

The Bin Separators field allows the Group By to be binned, i.e. have a group for each of a set of ranges of values, rather than a group for each distinct value. This may be useful for generating e.g. price-range groupings. If non-empty, the Bin Separators value is a comma-separated ascending list of values that define the lower and upper bounds of adjacent bins. Results are then grouped into these bins instead of distinct values. For example, a value of 50,100,250 would group into four bins: values less than 50, values greater than or equal to 50 but less than 100, values greater than or equal to 100 but less than 250, and values greater than or equal to 250. Note that there will be one more bin than the number of separators defined, since the separators define the bounds. Also note that a bin includes its lower bound (if present) but not its upper bound (if present).

The Bin Display Names field sets the displayed names for each of the bins defined by Bin Separators. If non-empty, its value is a comma-separated list of values, one per bin. (Note that since there is one more bin than separators, there should be one more Bin Display Names value than Bin Separators values.) If a value is empty, a name will automatically be generated for the bin, based on the lower and upper bounds; e.g. "Under 50", "50 - 100", "250 and up". A literal comma may be included in the bin name by escaping it with a backslash, i.e. "\,".

Group Bys should be set in descending priority order, i.e. highest priority first. Not all Group Bys set may actually be performed during a search, depending on which are already used in infield queries, and the value of Max Group Bys. If fewer Group Bys are performed than are set, the highest priority Group Bys are the ones performed; the remainder will have links in the results to expand them if the user chooses to.

See here for more details on using Group By.