[htdig-dev] Current Status as of snapshot 3.2.0b4-20020317

[Geoff H. <ghu...@us...>]

STATUS of ht://Dig branch 3-2-x

RELEASES:
   3.2.0b4: In progress
   3.2.0b3: Released:  22 Feb 2001.
   3.2.0b2: Released:  11 Apr 2000.
   3.2.0b1: Released:   4 Feb 2000.

SHOWSTOPPERS:

KNOWN BUGS:
* Odd behavior with $(MODIFIED) and scores not working with
   wordlist_compress set but work fine without wordlist_compress.
   (the date is definitely stored correctly, even with compression on
    so this must be some sort of weird htsearch bug)
* Not all htsearch input parameters are handled properly: PR#648. Use a
   consistant mapping of input -> config -> template for all inputs where
   it makes sense to do so (everything but "config" and "words"?).
* If exact isn't specified in the search_algorithms, $(WORDS) is not set 
   correctly: PR#650. (The documentation for 3.2.0b1 is updated, but can
   we fix this?)
* META descriptions are somehow added to the database as FLAG_TITLE,
   not FLAG_DESCRIPTION. (PR#859)

PENDING PATCHES (available but need work):
* Additional support for Win32.
* Memory improvements to htmerge. (Backed out b/c htword API changed.)
* MySQL patches to 3.1.x to be forward-ported and cleaned up.
  (Should really only attempt to use SQL for doc_db and related, not word_db)

NEEDED FEATURES:
* Field-restricted searching.
* Return all URLs.
* Handle noindex_start & noindex_end as string lists.
* Handle local_urls through file:// handler, for mime.types support.
* Handle directory redirects in RetrieveLocal.
* Merge with mifluz

TESTING:
* httools programs: 
  (htload a test file, check a few characteristics, htdump and compare)
* Turn on URL parser test as part of test suite.
* htsearch phrase support tests
* Tests for new config file parser
* Duplicate document detection while indexing
* Major revisions to ExternalParser.cc, including fork/exec instead of popen,
  argument handling for parser/converter, allowing binary output from an
  external converter.
* ExternalTransport needs testing of changes similar to ExternalParser.

DOCUMENTATION:
* List of supported platforms/compilers is ancient.
* Add thorough documentation on htsearch restrict/exclude behavior
   (including '|' and regex).
* Document all of htsearch's mappings of input parameters to config attributes
   to template variables. (Relates to PR#648.) Also make sure these config
   attributes are all documented in defaults.cc, even if they're only set by
   input parameters and never in the config file.
* Split attrs.html into categories for faster loading.
* require.html is not updated to list new features and disk space
   requirements of 3.2.x (e.g. phrase searching, regex matching,
   external parsers and transport methods, database compression.)
* TODO.html has not been updated for current TODO list and completions.

OTHER ISSUES:
* Can htsearch actually search while an index is being created?
   (Does Loic's new database code make this work?)
* The code needs a security audit, esp. htsearch
* URL.cc tries to parse malformed URLs (which causes further problems)
   (It should probably just set everything to empty) This relates to 
   PR#348.