What is lunr.js

Lunr.js is Javascript library that indexes content provided in JSON format. The index can be used to perform a full text search. How is that different from a simple ‘grep’? It uses modern search techniques such as tokenization, stemming, omitting stop words, etc. Although the default algorithms for each of these techniques are provided by lunr.js, the user can override them to fit their specific needs. And of course, the name lunr, is just a play on solr, which is a full text search engine, but made for heavy duty tasks.

Other libraries used in the example:

1. jQuery (optional)
2. underscore.js (optional)

Why do I need to search blog created by Jekyll?

First, because there is no database while using Jekyll. Hence no queries. So searching is not straight forward. Second, because I have started to Jekyll, and I think a blog without search is weird.

Show me the code

You could just View Source of this file and find all the code I’m using for this site in search.js. Here is the rundown:

Create an Index:

Provide the fields of the data to be indexed

var index;
createIndex();
function createIndex() {
	index = lunr(function () {
	    this.field('title', {boost: 10})
	    this.field('content')
	    this.field('date')
	    this.ref('url')
  });	
}

Loading the data to be indexed:

Being a Jekyll blog, there is no JSON data to represent the blog posts. So you have to store all your blog posts into the HTML on load. I know this is weird, but for blog with a few hundred pages of plain text should not slow down your load time much. Also, if you do not display all the blog posts at a time, it would be better to hide the loaded data using CSS. In the example below, I’m loading all blog data into doc_* elements, out of which the .doc_content tag is hidden by default.

loadData();
function loadData() {
	$('.doc').each(function(doc_index) {
		var doc = {};
		doc.date = $(this).find('.doc_date').text();
		doc.content = $(this).find('.doc_content').text();
		doc.title = $(this).find('.doc_title').text();
		doc.url = $(this).find('.doc_title').attr('href');

		index.add(doc);
		posts.push(doc);
	});
}

Searching the index:

Although searching the index is as easy as calling index.search(query), the return object is not an Array of loaded documents. Instead it returns the ref, i.e., reference number of the indexed document along with the confidence level of a match. So we have to find the corresponding document from the list of loaded documents.

function getResults(query) {
	var docs = [];
	var results = index.search(query);
	_.each(results, function(result) {
		console.log('Result ref: ' + result.ref);
		var doc = _.find(posts, function(post) {
			return post.url === result.ref;
		});
		if (doc) docs.push(doc);
		
	});
	return docs;
}

Shift Operators

Used to double or halve an integer or double.

short num = 0b0000_0100 << 1; // left operand is 4
// 0b00_01000, i.e., 8

Logical operators

Order of precedence is &(AND) , ^(XOR ..determines if operand bits or booleans are different. Returns 0 for match, and 1 for mismatch), |(OR)

Garbage Collection

Geocode g1 = new Geocode(51, 110); // g1 refers to memory allocated to geocode object, say 5123-5153
g1 = new Geocode(50, 109); //Block 5123-5153 is not referred any more and ready for GC

Primitive Type vs Objects

int a = 21;
int b = a; // Now JVM has 2 blocks in memory that contain the integer value 21
Geocode g1 = new Geocode(51, 110);
Geocode g2 = g1; // Now JVM has 1 block in memory that contain the object new Geocode(51,110)

If you want to Garbage Collect memory assigned to an object, then assign that object to null.

Variable length arguments

private int max(int first, int... rest);

is same as

private int max(int first, int[] rest);

synchronized

can be used to wrap a block of code or in the signature of a class/instance method. Doing this makes the stuff inside thread-safe. E.g., all methods within HashTable are synchronized. Note: Use ConcurrentHashMap instead of HashTable if you need Thread-safety. HashTable are slower because it locks the entire table of data for any read/write operation. Whereas, ConcurrentHashMap has 32 locks, each managing some of the Hash buckets for the table.

Generic Methods

Generic methods allow type parameters to be used to express dependencies among the types of one or more arguments to a method and/or its return type. e.g., the error in the following method can be prevented by parameterizing it, i.e., making it generic.

static void fromArrayToCollection(Object[] a, Collection< ? > c) {
    for (Object o : a) { 
        c.add(o); // compile-time error
    }
}
static < T > void fromArrayToCollection(T[] a, Collection< T > c) {
    for (T o : a) {
        c.add(o); // Correct
    }
}

If there is no dependency between the return type and/or the arguments of a method, then you are better off, using wildcards instead of generic method. Excellent example

Array vs ArrayList

ArrayList can hold a list of Objects, not primitives, whereas Array can hold either. Size of an array cannot grow dynamically. ArrayList’s size can.

WTH is Stack and Heap memory

• Stack is the part of memory that holds the primitives and references to objects, whereas the actual objects are stored on the heap.
• When the stack is full, a StackOverflowError exception is thrown. This is highly unlikely in normal programs because a separate stack is provided for each method. But if a method is called recursively, every primitive created in it will share the same stack and ultimately run out of space if not handled properly.
• When the Heap is full, it undergoes garbage collection, i.e., all the objects that are not referred anymore are removed from the memory. But if garbage collection is not enough, and the JVM has already expanded to it’s maximum heap capacity (provided by the JVM argument -xmx), an OutOfMemoryError exception will be thrown.

finalize()

Any object can override Object’s finalize() method for cleaning up any resources. This method is only triggered by the GC whenever it deems the object ready to be GCed.

== vs equals() for enum

Both are similar for enum, unlike for String. So it is better to use == to avoid NullPointerException

Basics of session management

HttpSession generates a cookie named jsessionid on the client’s browser. You can store the identifier of the user’s session in this cookie by httpSession.setAttribute("userName", "Bob"). The server maintains this session in-memory (or on disk, as per your server’s policy) for it’s life. The duration can be set by httpSession.setMaxInactiveInterval(n). If the n <= 0, then the session is maintained for ever by the server. The important thing to understand is that this persistence is on the server, not the client. The jsessionid cookie is killed as soon as the user closes the browser. The practice of storing the session for ever on the server sounds bad, but in fact is even worse than bad. It’s horrible. The jsessionid itself has some risks (attacker can steal the cookie), and remembering and honoring it’s value for ever is dangerous.

So how to let the user inside the secure area of your website, without having him to log in each time he closes the browser? Here is a very nice article from 2006 that explains best practices: