Advanced Features - sourcegraph/zoekt

Advanced Features for Zoekt

Zoekt is a code search engine designed for large code bases, developed using Go programming language, gRPC, and Protocol Buffers. It utilizes the Go standard library, go-ctags, go-cmp, Slothfs, Grafana regexp, Jaeger, and other technologies for efficient code search. This document will explore advanced concepts like sharding, code snippets, and the Zoekt JSON API for customizing your search experience and developing integrations.

Sharding

Sharding is a method of horizontally partitioning data across multiple servers to improve scalability and performance. Zoekt supports sharding, which allows it to handle large code bases and provide fast search results. The sharding strategy in Zoekt is based on the Git repository, meaning that each repository is stored on a separate shard. This approach ensures that search queries are executed in parallel on the relevant shards, reducing search times significantly.

Code Snippets

Zoekt allows you to create code snippets for specific search queries. Code snippets are useful for sharing search results or saving frequently used search queries. To create a code snippet, you can use the Zoekt JSON API to define the search query and save it as a snippet. Here’s an example of a code snippet using the JSON API:

{
"query": {
"repo": ["my-repo"],
"file": ["*.go"],
"line": [
{
"regexp": "func .*\\(",
"flags": "im"
}
]
},
"name": "Go functions",
"description": "List all Go functions in my-repo"
}

Zoekt JSON API

The Zoekt JSON API is a powerful tool for customizing your search experience and developing integrations. It allows you to define complex search queries, save and load search queries as code snippets, and interact with the Zoekt engine programmatically.

Here’s an example of using the JSON API to perform a search query:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @query.json http://localhost:8080/search

Where query.json contains the search query in JSON format.

Advanced Search Query Example

The following example demonstrates an advanced search query using the Zoekt JSON API:

{
"query": {
"repo": ["my-repo"],
"file": ["*.go"],
"line": [
{
"regexp": "func .*\\(",
"flags": "im"
}
],
"context": {
"before": 5,
"after": 5
}
}
}

This search query searches for all Go functions (*.go files containing the func keyword) in the my-repo repository and returns 5 lines of context before and after the match.

For more information on the Zoekt JSON API, refer to the official documentation.

Dependencies

Zoekt relies on several dependencies, including Go programming language, gRPC, Protocol Buffers, Go standard library, go-ctags, go-cmp, Slothfs, Grafana regexp, and Jaeger. These dependencies provide essential functionality for Zoekt, such as efficient data processing, indexing, and search.

For more information on Zoekt’s dependencies, refer to the official documentation.

Building and Running Zoekt

To build and run Zoekt, you can use the following Go command:

go build -o zoekt github.com/sourcegraph/zoekt

This command builds the Zoekt binary and saves it as zoekt. You can then run Zoekt using the following command:

./zoekt --index-path /path/to/index --port 8080

Replace /path/to/index with the path to your index and 8080 with the desired port number.

For more information on building and running Zoekt, refer to the official documentation.

Conclusion

Zoekt’s advanced features, such as sharding, code snippets, and the Zoekt JSON API, make it a powerful and flexible code search engine. By leveraging these features, you can customize your search experience, develop integrations, and handle large code bases with ease. Zoekt’s dependencies provide essential functionality for efficient data processing, indexing, and search, ensuring fast and accurate search results.