Streaming Expressions | Apache Solr Reference Guide 6.6

Streaming Expressions provide a simple yet powerful stream processing language for Solr Cloud.

Streaming expressions are a suite of functions that can be combined to perform many different parallel computing tasks. These functions are the basis for the Parallel SQL Interface.

There is a growing library of functions that can be combined to implement:

Request/response stream processing
Batch stream processing
Fast interactive MapReduce
Aggregations (Both pushed down faceted and shuffling MapReduce)
Parallel relational algebra (distributed joins, intersections, unions, complements)
Publish/subscribe messaging
Distributed graph traversal
Machine learning and parallel iterative model training
Anomaly detection
Recommendation systems
Retrieve and rank services
Text classification and feature extraction
Streaming NLP

Streams from outside systems can be joined with streams originating from Solr and users can add their own stream functions by following Solr’s Java streaming API.

Both streaming expressions and the streaming API are considered experimental, and the APIs are subject to change.

Stream Language Basics

Streaming Expressions are comprised of streaming functions which work with a Solr collection. They emit a stream of tuples (key/value Maps).

Many of the provided streaming functions are designed to work with entire result sets rather then the top N results like normal search. This is supported by the /export handler.

Some streaming functions act as stream sources to originate the stream flow. Other streaming functions act as stream decorators to wrap other stream functions and perform operations on the stream of tuples. Many streams functions can be parallelized across a worker collection. This can be particularly powerful for relational algebra functions.

Streaming Requests and Responses

Solr has a /stream request handler that takes streaming expression requests and returns the tuples as a JSON stream. This request handler is implicitly defined, meaning there is nothing that has to be defined in solrconfig.xml - see Implicit RequestHandlers.

The /stream request handler takes one parameter, expr, which is used to specify the streaming expression. For example, this curl command encodes and POSTs a simple search() expression to the /stream handler:

curl --data-urlencode 'expr=search(enron_emails,
                                   q="from:1800flowers*",
                                   fl="from, to",
                                   sort="from asc",
                                   qt="/export")' http://localhost:8983/solr/enron_emails/stream

Details of the parameters for each function are included below.

For the above example the /stream handler responded with the following JSON response:

{"result-set":{"docs":[
   {"from":"1800flowers.133139412@s2u2.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers.93690065@s2u2.com","to":"jtholt@ect.enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers.96749439@s2u2.com","to":"alewis@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@1800flowers.flonetwork.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@1800flowers.flonetwork.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@1800flowers.flonetwork.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@1800flowers.flonetwork.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@1800flowers.flonetwork.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@shop2u.com","to":"ebass@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@shop2u.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@shop2u.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@shop2u.com","to":"lcampbel@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@shop2u.com","to":"ebass@enron.com"},
   {"from":"1800flowers@shop2u.com","to":"ebass@enron.com"},
   {"EOF":true,"RESPONSE_TIME":33}]}
}

Note the last tuple in the above example stream is {"EOF":true,"RESPONSE_TIME":33}. The EOF indicates the end of the stream. To process the JSON response, you’ll need to use a streaming JSON implementation because streaming expressions are designed to return the entire result set which may have millions of records. In your JSON client you’ll need to iterate each doc (tuple) and check for the EOF tuple to determine the end of stream.

The org.apache.solr.client.solrj.io package provides Java classes that compile streaming expressions into streaming API objects. These classes can be used to execute streaming expressions from inside a Java application. For example:

StreamFactory streamFactory = new StreamFactory().withCollectionZkHost("collection1", zkServer.getZkAddress())
    .withStreamFunction("search", CloudSolrStream.class)
    .withStreamFunction("unique", UniqueStream.class)
    .withStreamFunction("top", RankStream.class)
    .withStreamFunction("group", ReducerStream.class)
    .withStreamFunction("parallel", ParallelStream.class);

ParallelStream pstream = (ParallelStream)streamFactory.constructStream("parallel(collection1, group(search(collection1, q=\"*:*\", fl=\"id,a_s,a_i,a_f\", sort=\"a_s asc,a_f asc\", partitionKeys=\"a_s\"), by=\"a_s asc\"), workers=\"2\", zkHost=\""+zkHost+"\", sort=\"a_s asc\")");

Data Requirements

Because streaming expressions relies on the /export handler, many of the field and field type requirements to use /export are also requirements for /stream, particularly for sort and fl parameters. Please see the section Exporting Result Sets for details.

Types of Streaming Expressions

About Stream Sources

Stream sources originate streams. The most commonly used one of these is search, which does a query.

A full reference to all available source expressions is available in Stream Sources.

About Stream Decorators

Stream decorators wrap other stream functions or perform operations on a stream.

A full reference to all available decorator expressions is available in Stream Decorators.

About Stream Evaluators

Stream Evaluators can be used to evaluate (calculate) new values based on other values in a tuple. That newly evaluated value can be put into the tuple (as part of a select(…) clause), used to filter streams (as part of a having(…) clause), and for other things. Evaluators can contain field names, raw values, or other evaluators, giving you the ability to create complex evaluation logic, including conditional if/then choices.

In cases where you want to use raw values as part of an evaluation you will need to consider the order of how evaluators are parsed.

If the parameter can be parsed into a valid number, then it is considered a number. For example, add(3,4.5)
If the parameter can be parsed into a valid boolean, then it is considered a boolean. For example, eq(true,false)
If the parameter can be parsed into a valid evaluator, then it is considered an evaluator. For example, eq(add(10,4),add(7,7))
The parameter is considered a field name, even if it quoted. For example, eq(fieldA,"fieldB")

If you wish to use a raw string as part of an evaluation, you will want to consider using the raw(string) evaluator. This will always return the raw value, no matter what is entered.

A full reference to all available evaluator expressions is available in Stream Evaluators.

Exporting Result Sets Stream Source Reference