PicoSearch Professional and Premium accounts can get their search results delivered in XML datafeed for a one-time install fee of $199, just contact us. This will enable webservice datafeed support, so that your server can call your PicoSearch engine directly and integrate the search results any way that you wish into your website. This could include mixing the search results with other dynamic information sources at your server. Or your server could use the datafeed to generate different results page designs beyond the abilities of PicoSearch's template system, which is powerful but essentially supports one main design with limited dynamic tweaking abilities, see Template FAQ.
If you're thinking of using XML just for the effect of hiding the PicoSearch links behind your own scripts, you would probably be better off with the Private Domain feature.
XML datafeed usage is not for beginners, of course. It takes some programming experience to make server scripts, using whatever tools you prefer. You might rely on a standard XML parser, or you could parse the XML on your own. Either way it's important to look at the DTD specs and usage as described below.
- There are two versions of the XML feed, either you can use.
- Once the XML option has been paid for and activated, then XML results are returned whenever the xml=1 or xml=2 argument is supplied with the query. Version 1 is xml=1, version 2 is xml=2. So your search box code could include: <input type=hidden name=xml value=1> In a URL call with cgi arguments, you would include: &xml=1
- The range of results returned is set by two things, (1) the doc0 arg in the call and (2) the number of results set in your account manager's Ranking Options feature. You can see doc0 in use in the next pages links of non-XML search results. The connection with the XML results is illustrated below:
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With &xml=1&doc0=0 (doc0 is also 0 by default)
<RangeShown lower="0" upper="10"/>
Showing results 1-10
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With &xml=1&doc0=10
<RangeShown lower="10" upper="20"/>
Showing results 11-20
So in RangeShown of the XML, lower=doc0, and (upper - lower)= number of results.
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