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Solr Query Language Cheatsheet

A quick reference guide to the Solr Query Language (SQL), covering syntax, operators, functions, and best practices for effective searching and data retrieval within Solr.

Basic Syntax & Query Parameters

Core Query Syntax

q: Main query parameter. Specifies the search query.
Example: q=name:product (finds documents where the ‘name’ field contains ‘product’)

fq: Filter Query. Restricts the set of documents that can be returned, without influencing the score.
Example: fq=category:electronics (filters results to only include documents where ‘category’ is ‘electronics’)

sort: Sorts the results by a specified field.
Example: sort=price asc (sorts results by ‘price’ in ascending order)

start: Specifies the offset of the first result to return.
Example: start=10 (starts the results from the 11th document)

rows: Specifies the number of results to return.
Example: rows=20 (returns 20 documents per page)

fl: Specifies the fields to return in the result.
Example: fl=id,name,price (returns only the ‘id’, ‘name’, and ‘price’ fields)

Query Operators

AND, OR, NOT

Boolean operators for combining query terms.
Example: q=category:electronics AND brand:Samsung

+ (required)

Specifies that a term must be present in the document.
Example: q=+name:product +price:[10 TO 100]

- (prohibit)

Excludes documents containing the term.
Example: q=category:electronics -brand:Apple

:

Specifies a field for the term.
Example: q=name:product

*

Wildcard for matching any characters.
Example: q=name:prod*

?

Wildcard for matching a single character.
Example: q=name:p?od

Advanced Querying

Fuzzy Search

Fuzzy searches find terms that are similar to a specified term.
Syntax: term~distance
Example: q=name:roam~2 (finds terms within a Levenshtein distance of 2 from ‘roam’)

Note: The distance value is optional. If not specified, the default value is 2.

Proximity Search

Proximity searches find terms that are within a specific distance from each other.
Syntax: "term1 term2"~distance
Example: q=name:"quick brown"~5 (finds ‘quick’ and ‘brown’ within 5 words of each other in the ‘name’ field)

Range Queries

Range queries match documents whose field(s) values are between the upper and lower bounds specified.
Syntax: field:[lower TO upper]
Example: q=price:[10 TO 100] (finds documents where ‘price’ is between 10 and 100, inclusive)

To exclude the upper or lower bound, use curly brackets {}.
Example: q=price:{10 TO 100} (finds documents where ‘price’ is greater than 10 and less than 100)

Boosting

^ (Boost Factor)

Assigns a higher relevance score to terms, increasing their ranking in the results.
Example: q=name:product^2 OR description:product (boosts documents where ‘product’ is in the ‘name’ field)

Note:

The default boost factor is 1. Values greater than 1 increase the score, while values less than 1 decrease the score.

Function Queries & Local Parameters

Function Queries

Function queries allow you to use functions to calculate a score based on field values.
Syntax: _val_: followed by the function.
Example: q={!func}sqrt(popularity) (scores documents based on the square root of the ‘popularity’ field)

Common Functions: sqrt(), abs(), if(), sum(), product()

Local Parameters

Local parameters allow you to modify the behavior of specific query parts.
Syntax: {!paramName paramValue}
Example: q={!type=lucene df=description}product (searches for ‘product’ in the ‘description’ field using the Lucene query parser)

Common Parameters: type (query parser), df (default field), v (value)

Spatial Queries

Solr supports spatial queries to find documents within a certain distance of a point.
Common Parameters: pt (point), d (distance), sfield (spatial field)
Example: q={!geofilt pt=45.15,-93.85 sfield=location d=5} (finds documents within 5 kilometers of the point 45.15,-93.85 using the ‘location’ field)

Solr SQL Interface

Basic SQL Syntax

Solr provides an SQL interface for querying data using standard SQL syntax.
Example: SELECT id, name, price FROM collection WHERE category = 'electronics' AND price > 50

SQL Functions

COUNT(*)

Counts the total number of documents in the collection.
Example: SELECT COUNT(*) FROM collection

AVG(field)

Calculates the average value of a numeric field.
Example: SELECT AVG(price) FROM collection

SUM(field)

Calculates the sum of a numeric field.
Example: SELECT SUM(price) FROM collection

MIN(field)

Finds the minimum value of a numeric field.
Example: SELECT MIN(price) FROM collection

MAX(field)

Finds the maximum value of a numeric field.
Example: SELECT MAX(price) FROM collection

Joins

Solr supports JOIN operations to combine data from multiple collections.
Syntax: JOIN collection2 ON collection1.field = collection2.field
Example: SELECT c1.id, c1.name, c2.category FROM collection1 c1 JOIN collection2 c2 ON c1.category_id = c2.id
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