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Hey Guys looking for a complete guide thats a bit simpler and easy going than the one provided on the site.

Looking for a few concepts on how exactly it all works.

I have a server with php, html other data and a mysql db. How would i go about setting up sphinx to power the search and results being returned?

I'd like to be able to pass my search terms to my php script and that deal with sphinx and return the data back.

Any ideas/help/links are much appreciated. Thanks.

P.S I'm also open to suggestion regarding any other alternatives to sphinx.

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I found this article. It seems to be a good one for beginners. –  user1706405 Sep 28 '12 at 13:32

3 Answers 3

Here is a very good Sphinx Tutorial from IBM.

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I do not now any simple guide for sphinx... the best source seems to be the documentation but for the ps : take a look at Elasticsearch, it's a cool and growing alternative to sphinx (even if it is not blazing fast as sphinx... but fast too). It has a nice REST api which makes it very versatile.

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thanks for the recommendation. –  Julio Feb 18 '11 at 10:39
I wouldn't recommend ElasticSearch. We are moving from it to Sphinx. –  kasp3r Oct 26 '12 at 10:46
that is not really recommendation... –  confiq Jul 9 '13 at 17:45

I'm not too sure about a good guide but here are my steps.

a) Download and install it's quite straightforward

b) Make your first index - you need a source a location the given config is very good remember you can use a primary source to config all the main areas and then other sources stem off from that. Each source should start with the primary key and I find it works best to do key_id AS id

c) Test you index using the search

d) Start your search demon for sphinx - searchd this is what php will connect to and how it gets your results.

e) Make a function to search all indexes pass in the index you want to search and it will return the ids in an array that have matched your search

f) Make a delta and updates.

Job done - the sphinx forum is very nice and should provide you if you need any help. Richard

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