---
name: "swish++"
section: "4"
platform: "linux"
package: "swish++"
version: "1.1b3-3"
release: "Debian 2.1 (Slink)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/swish++"
---

# swish++(4)

## NAME

SWISH++ index file format

## SYNOPSIS

```
long	num_words;
off_t	word_offset[ num_words ];
long	num_files;
off_t	file_offset[ num_files ];
	word index
	file index
```

## DESCRIPTION

The index file format used by SWISH++ is as shown above. Every `word_offset` is an offset into the *word index* pointing at the first character of a word entry; similarly, every `file_offset` is an offset into the *file index* pointing at the first character of a file entry.

The index file is written as it is so that it can be mapped into memory via the [**mmap**(2)](/mmap/2.md) Unix system call enabling \`\`instantaneous'' access.

### Word Entries

Every word entry in the *word index* is of the form:

```
word0{file-index rank }...0
```

that is: a null-terminated word followed by one or more *file-index/rank* integer pairs followed by a null byte. The *file-index/rank* integers are in ASCII, not binary, since this takes less space. Every integer is followed by a single space character (ASCII 32 decimal). The *file-index* is an index into the `file_offset` table.

### File Entries

Every file entry in the *file index* is of the form:

```
path-name file-size file-title0
```

that is: the pathname for a file relative to where the indexing was performed (unless absolute paths were used) followed by the file's size in bytes followed by by the file's title followed by a null byte. All the information is in ASCII.

For an HTML file, the title is what is between `<TITLE>` ... `</TITLE>` pairs. If a file is not an HTML file, or is but does not have a title, the title is simply the file (not path) name.

## CAVEAT

Generated index files are machine-dependent (size of data types and byte-order).

## SEE ALSO

[**index++**(1)](/index++/1.md), [**search++**(1)](/search++/1.md)

## AUTHOR

Paul J. Lucas \<*pjl@best.com*\>