Ralph LeVan here at OCLC has worked on an SRU interface to Lucene.

See http://www.oclc.org/research/presentations/levan/sru-lucene.ppt

which he gave at a workshop in Texas about SRU
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/workshops/SRU/

--Th


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Gabriel Farrell
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib lucene pre-conference

On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 10:27:22AM -0500, Ross Singer wrote:
> On 11/28/06, Kevin S. Clarke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >How do you switch to it?  How do the pieces talk?  This is the point
> >of standards.  If there is a standard way of addressing an index then
> >you don't have to care what the newest greatest indexer is.  This
> >paragraph seems in contrast to your one above.
> >
> Well, what's the guarantee that the next great indexer isn't going to
> be using /some other standard/ than the one you're using?
>
> My only point is, it's a whole lot easier to refactor your application
> to benefit from a different indexing engine than it is to export all
> of your data out of something, potentially remodel it to work in
> another.
>
> I suppose it all breaks down to how much work you're willing to invest
> to keep up with the Joneses (after all, you could just stay with
> Lucene), but I don't really see the argument of "XQuery is a
> standard".  Just because it's a standard (vs. semi-ubiquitous API)
> doesn't mean it will have the best tools for a particular problem
> area.
>
> -Ross.
>

Can't we stay with Lucene *and* keep up with the Joneses?  What's been
referred to in this conversation as Lucene's Standard Query Language
is just the syntax used by Lucene's default Query Parser, and, as
noted in the overview[1], "Although Lucene provides the ability to
create your own queries through its API, it also provides a rich query
language through the Query Parser, a lexer which interprets a string
into a Lucene Query using JavaCC."

It's nice that Lucene ships with a Query Parser, but it is by no means
the only way to parse queries for Lucene.  A Google search on "lucene
xquery parser" (no quotes) brings up Nux and Jackrabbit.  I don't know
much about either project, but they seem to be working already on the
future we're talking about.

Gabe

[1] http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/queryparsersyntax.html#Overview