Using Lucene like a relational database

Question

I am just wondering if we could achieve some RDBMS capabilities in lucene.

Example: 1) I have 10,000 project documents (pdf files) which have to be indexed with their content to make them available for search. 2) Every document is related to a SINGLE PROJECT. The project can contain details like project name, number, start date, end date, location, type etc.

I have to search in the contents of the pdf files for a given keyword, but while displaying the results I want to display the project meta data as mentioned in point (2).

My idea is to associate a field called projectId with each pdf file while indexing. Once we get that, we will fire search again for getting project meta data.

This way we could avoid duplicated data. Also, if we want to update the project meta data we will end up updating at a SINGLE PLACE only. Otherwise if we store this meta data with all the pdf doument indexes, we will end up updating all of the documents, which is not the way I am looking for.

please advise.

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, you have two questions:

1. Can I store a project id in Lucene and use it for further searches? Yes, you can. This is a common practice.
2. Can I use this project id to search Lucene for project meta data? Yes, you can. I do not know if this is a good idea. It depends on the frequency of your meta data updates and your access pattern. If the meta data is relatively static, and you only access it by id, Lucene may be a good place to store it. Otherwise, you can use the project id as a primary key to a database table, which could be a better fit.