Thunderstone Search Appliance Manual

Primary Key

When creating a profile with the Catalog module installed, a primary key must be selected. The primary key is the one column that must be unique for each item/document, so that each item is positively identified for update imports. Usually that key is the URL, as is typical for traditional web site walks. However, for some catalog situations, multiple items might be associated with one URL, e.g. a product and its accessories might be listed on the same URL on the site. In these cases, another column (perhaps a SKU) can be assigned as primary key to distinguish items. During import, the Parametric Search Appliance may append the primary key value to the URL (as a pound-sign anchor value) in order to make the final URL unique (which is required for database purposes).