How can I index a lot of txt files? (Java/C/C++)

Question

I need to index a lot of text. The search results must give me the name of the files containing the query and all of the positions where the query matched in each file - so, I don't have to load the whole file to find the matching portion. What libraries can you recommend for doing this?

update: Lucene has been suggested. Can you give me some info on how should I use Lucene to achieve this? (I have seen examples where the search query returned only the matching files)

Answer 1

For java try Lucene

Answer 2

I believe the lucene term for what you are looking for is highlighting. Here is a very recent report on Lucene highlighting. You will probably need to store word position information in order to get the snippets you are looking for. The Token API may help.