Setup Xapian and Ruby binding on Ubuntu server
By taylor luk on August 17, 2009 @ 10:00 AM
Today, I need to get my Xapian setup with Ruby 1.9 on my Ubuntu 8.04 vps and there are very little documentation on setup Xapian and ruby, so I decide to share and cover some information on the setup process.
In the past I have introduced Xapit in a post Fulltext search your CouchDB in Ruby, It is a Xapian fulltext search toolkit for ruby and it's easy and extensible, also i have added a CouchDB adapter to Index your CouchDB database using Xapit.
Here is a list of documentation about installing Xapian,
Xapian
Latest ubuntu package for Xapian i can find is 1.0.4, so i decide to download the latest package of xapian-core and xapian-bindings from the official website.
xapian-core
wget http://oligarchy.co.uk/xapian/1.0.14/xapian-core-1.0.14.tar.gz
tar zxf xapian-core-1.0.14.tar.gz
cd xapian-core-1.0.14
./configure && make && sudo make install
xapian-ruby binding
xaipan bindings contains language binding to many languages including ruby, python and php.
wget http://oligarchy.co.uk/xapian/1.0.14/xapian-bindings-1.0.14.tar.gz
tar zxf xapian-bindings-1.0.14.tar.gz
cd xapian-bindings-1.0.14
./configure && make && sudo make install
If you have a alternative ruby interpreter such as (ruby 1.9 or REE) then you need to pass in the location of your ruby interpreter during setup.
./configure RUBY=/opt/ruby1.9/bin/ruby1.9
make && sudo make isntall
Quick Test
A quick irb session will reveal if everything has gone smoothly.
irb1.9
irb(main:001:0>require 'xpaian'
=> true
Congratulations
Now you have successfully installed xapian and it's ruby binding. Checkout acts_as_xapian or xapit if you are looking for a fulltext search solution in your Rails application.
