Searching Through File Directories (word or PDF)

[rpupkin77]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is a viable way to search through - or index and search that - the contents of files in a directory either word or pdf - (or RTF) with PHP.

For exanple there will be an online document repository containing these docs - the user will enter a search term on the web interface and the app will go through the directory and search the files or some kind of index.

I have suggested to my client that there are more effecient ways to search (by entering these docs and associating keywords in a mysql table) but they seem atamant that they want to allow the user (the option at least) to search through eachand every file.

I told them that it would be like searching for a word in the docs on his XP machine but still...

Anyway I have looked and have found no helpful answers and I was wondering someone here could point me in the direction of a tutorial.

Thanks.

[etully]

http://www.swish-e.org/

From their main page: "Swish-e can index plain text, e-mail, PDF, HTML, XML, Microsoft® Word/PowerPoint/Excel and just about any file that can be converted to XML or HTML text. Swish-e is also often used to supplement databases like the MySQL® DBMS for very fast full-text searching."

I've used it. I love it. It's amazing. And open source.

[rpupkin77]

Thanks I will take a look.

In the meantime, this is on a shared webhost (media temple) I assume I would need to have them install this, or is this one of the open source tools I can install myself via an interface?

Thanks Again

[etully]

I don't know. I believe that there is a way to install it without being root but you will at least need telnet (ssh) capabilities.

[rpupkin77]

Thanks, i'll talk to their support and see what they say.