Bigfoot Facet Service

In keeping with the self documenting easy experimentation style of Platform API Services, this user guide article is best read in conjunction with a real example. To open a new window containing the html interface, to the Items Query API, for a Bigfoot Store containing bibliographic records, click here.

You will have been presented with a screen which contains prompts and selection boxes which relate to the required and optional parameters defined in the API reference document.

• Search: - maps to the query parameter.
• Fields: - comma delimited list of fields for which top ranking terms are to be returned
• Maximum facets to return: - optional maximum number of terms to return for each field.
• Output type: - optional output data format html or xml - defaults to xml.

Searching

The query syntax that can be used is the same as for the Items query, as defined in the Search Query Syntax Reference document.

The data returned from the facet service is, for each field requested, a list of the top terms from that field which satisfy the search query. Each term has associated with it the search query that a user can user to search within that facet set and also the query to carry out a facet search within that facet set.

The results of this can be best understood by selecting html as Output type. In this mode the returned searches are represented as click-able links

As you navigate through these faceted links the complex, but nevertheless standard, search query is displayed in the Search prompt and the resultant API in the browser address prompt