Implementing Full-Text Search Functionality Using Spring and MySQL

Implementing Full-Text Search Functionality Using Spring and MySQL

This document introduces how to implement basic full-text search functionality using Spring and MySQL.

1. Create MySQL Full-Text Supported Table

To use full-text search in MySQL, you need to create a FULLTEXT index on the relevant table. Create the FULLTEXT index on the required columns as shown in the example below:

CREATE TABLE articles (
    id INT UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    title VARCHAR(200),
    content TEXT,
    FULLTEXT (title, content)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;

2. Connect MySQL to a Spring Boot Project

To connect MySQL to a Spring Boot application, you need to add the MySQL Connector/J dependency to your pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>mysql</groupId>
    <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
</dependency>

Then, configure the MySQL connection information in the application.properties file as follows:

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/your_database?useSSL=false&serverTimezone=UTC
spring.datasource.username=your_username
spring.datasource.password=your_password
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update

3. Create Article Entity and Repository

Create the Article entity and ArticleRepository to establish a connection with the database:

@Entity
public class Article {
    @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;

    private String title;
    private String content;

    // Omitted: Getters, Setters, and Constructors
}

@Repository
public interface ArticleRepository extends JpaRepository<Article, Long> {
}

4. Create Custom Query for Full-Text Search

Create a custom query in the ArticleRepository to leverage MySQL's full-text search functionality:

@Query(value = "SELECT * FROM articles WHERE MATCH (title, content) AGAINST (?1)", nativeQuery = true)
List<Article> fullTextSearch(String keyword);

Now you can use the fullTextSearch method to search for all articles containing keywords in the title and content.

5. Implement REST API for Using the Search Functionality

To implement a REST API that uses the search functionality, you also need to add the Spring Web dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>

You can now create a search controller:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/articles")
public class ArticleController {
    private final ArticleRepository articleRepository;

    // Dependency injection 
    public ArticleController(ArticleRepository articleRepository) {
        this.articleRepository = articleRepository;
    }

   @GetMapping("/search")
   public List<Article> search(@RequestParam String keyword) {
       return articleRepository.fullTextSearch(keyword);
   }
}
 

This allows you to use the search functionality through the /api/articles/search?keyword=search_term endpoint..

You can customize or extend your full-text search functionality as needed. This document introduced how to implement basic full-text search functionality using Spring and MySQL. Please refer to this guide to apply the search functionality as desired.