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Fast multi-keyword search engine for text strings

Project description

Author:

Stefan Behnel

What is Acora?

Acora is ‘fgrep’ for Python, a fast multi-keyword text search engine.

Based on a set of keywords, it generates a search automaton (DFA) and runs it over string input, either unicode or bytes.

It is based on the Aho-Corasick algorithm and an NFA-to-DFA powerset construction.

Acora comes with both a pure Python implementation and a fast binary module written in Cython.

Features

  • works with unicode strings and byte strings

  • about 2-3x as fast as Python’s regular expression engine

  • finds overlapping matches, i.e. all matches of all keywords

  • support for case insensitive search (~10x as fast as ‘re’)

  • frees the GIL while searching

  • additional (slow but short) pure Python implementation

  • support for Python 2.5+ and 3.x

  • support for searching in files

  • permissive BSD license

How do I use it?

Import the package:

>>> from acora import AcoraBuilder

Collect some keywords:

>>> builder = AcoraBuilder('ab', 'bc', 'de')
>>> builder.add('a', 'b')

Generate the Acora search engine for the current keyword set:

>>> ac = builder.build()

Search a string for all occurrences:

>>> ac.findall('abc')
[('a', 0), ('ab', 0), ('b', 1), ('bc', 1)]
>>> ac.findall('abde')
[('a', 0), ('ab', 0), ('b', 1), ('de', 2)]

Iterate over the search results as they come in:

>>> for kw, pos in ac.finditer('abde'):
...     print("%2s[%d]" % (kw, pos))
 a[0]
ab[0]
 b[1]
de[2]

FAQs and recipes

  1. how do I run a greedy search for the longest matching keywords?

    >>> builder = AcoraBuilder('a', 'ab', 'abc')
    >>> ac = builder.build()
    
    >>> for kw, pos in ac.finditer('abbabc'):
    ...     print(kw)
    a
    ab
    a
    ab
    abc
    
    >>> from itertools import groupby
    >>> from operator import itemgetter
    
    >>> def longest_match(matches):
    ...     for pos, match_set in groupby(matches, itemgetter(1)):
    ...         yield max(match_set)
    
    >>> for kw, pos in longest_match(ac.finditer('abbabc')):
    ...     print(kw)
    ab
    abc
    
  2. how do I parse line-by-line, as fgrep does, but with arbitrary line endings?

    >>> def group_by_lines(s, *keywords):
    ...     builder = AcoraBuilder('\r', '\n', *keywords)
    ...     ac = builder.build()
    ...
    ...     current_line_matches = []
    ...     last_ending = None
    ...
    ...     for kw, pos in ac.finditer(s):
    ...         if kw in '\r\n':
    ...             if last_ending == '\r' and kw == '\n':
    ...                 continue # combined CRLF
    ...             yield tuple(current_line_matches)
    ...             del current_line_matches[:]
    ...             last_ending = kw
    ...         else:
    ...             last_ending = None
    ...             current_line_matches.append(kw)
    ...     yield tuple(current_line_matches)
    
    >>> kwds = ['ab', 'bc', 'de']
    >>> for matches in group_by_lines('a\r\r\nbc\r\ndede\n\nab', *kwds):
    ...     print(matches)
    ()
    ()
    ('bc',)
    ('de', 'de')
    ()
    ('ab',)
    

Changelog

  • 1.3 [2009-01-30]

    • major fix for file search

  • 1.2 [2009-01-30]

    • deep-copy support for AcoraBuilder class

    • doc/test fixes

    • include .hg repo in source distribution

    • built using Cython 0.12.1 (beta0)

  • 1.1 [2009-01-29]

    • doc updates

    • some cleanup

    • built using Cython 0.12.1 (beta0)

  • 1.0 [2009-01-29]

    • initial release

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