---
name: "swish-e"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "swish-e"
version: "2.4.7-6.3"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/swish-e"
---

# swish-e(1)

A Search Engine

## NAME

Swish-e - A Search Engine

## SYNOPSIS

```
    swish [-e] [-i dir file ... ] [-S system] [-c file] [-f file] [-l] [-v (num)]
    swish -w word1 word2 ... [-f file1 file2 ...] \
          [-P phrase_delimiter] [-p prop1 ...] [-s sortprop1 [asc⎪desc] ...] \
          [-m num] [-t str] [-d delim] [-H (num)] [-x output_format]
    swish -k (char⎪*) [-f file1 file2 ...]
    swish -M index1 index2 ... outputfile
    swish -N /path/to/compare/file
    swish -V
```

See the the [*SWISH-RUN*(1)](/SWISH-RUN/1.md) man page for details on run-time options.

## DESCRIPTION

Swish-e is Simple Web Indexing System for Humans - Enhanced. Swish-e can quickly and easily index directories of files or remote web sites and search the generated indexes.

Swish-e is extremely fast in both indexing and searching, highly configurable, and can be seamlessly integrated with existing web sites to maintain a consistent design. Swish-e can index web pages, but can just as easily index text files, mailing list archives, or data stored in a relational database.

Swish is designed to index small to medium sized collection of documents, Although a few users are indexing over a million documents, typical usage is more often in the tens of thousands. Currently, Swish-e only indexes eight bit character encodings.

## DOCUMENTATION

Documentation is provided as HTML pages installed in `$prefix`/share/doc/swish-e where `$prefix` is /usr/local if building from source, or /usr if installed as part of a package from your OS vendor. Under Windows `$prefix` is selected at installation time.

Documentation is also available on-line at http://swish-e.org.

A subset of the documentation is installed as system man pages as well. The following man pages should be installed:

- [*swish-e*(1)](/swish-e/1.md)

  This man page.

- [*SWISH-CONFIG*(1)](/SWISH-CONFIG/1.md)

  Defines options that can be used in a configuration file.

- [*SWISH-RUN*(1)](/SWISH-RUN/1.md)

  Describes the run-time options and switches.

- [*SWISH-FAQ*(1)](/SWISH-FAQ/1.md)

  Answers to commonly asked questions.

- [*SWISH-LIBRARY*(1)](/SWISH-LIBRARY/1.md)

  API for the Swish-e search library.  Applications can link against this library.

## SUPPORT

Support for Swish-e is provide via the Swish-e discussion list.  See http://swish-e.org for information.