Algolia Search API Client for Java

Algolia Search is a hosted full-text, numerical, and faceted search engine capable of delivering realtime results from the first keystroke. The Algolia Search API Client for Java lets you easily use the Algolia Search REST API from your Java code.

API Documentation

You can find the full reference on Algolia's website.

Table of Contents

1. Supported platforms

2. Install

3. Philosophy

   • Builder
   • JSON & Jackson2
   • Async & Future

4. Quick Start

   • Initialize the client

5. Push data

6. Configure

7. Search

8. Search UI

   • index.html

Getting Started

Supported platforms

This API client only suports Java 1.8+. If you need support for an older version, please use this package.

Install

If you're using Maven, add the following dependency to your pom.xml file:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.algolia</groupId>
  <artifactId>algoliasearch</artifactId>
  <version>[2,]</version>
</dependency>

For the asynchronous version use:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.algolia</groupId>
  <artifactId>algoliasearch-async</artifactId>
  <version>[2,]</version>
</dependency>

On Google AppEngine use this:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.algolia</groupId>
  <artifactId>algoliasearch-appengine</artifactId>
  <version>[2,]</version>
</dependency>

Philosophy

Builder

The v2 of the api client uses a builder to create the APIClient object:

• on Google App Engine use the AppEngineAPIClientBuilder
  • if you fancy Future, use the AsyncHttpAPIClientBuilder
• on Android, use the Android API Client
• on a regular JVM, use the ApacheAPIClientBuilder

JSON & Jackson2

All the serialization/deserialization is done with Jackson2. You can add your custom ObjectMapper with the method setObjectMapper of the builder. Changing it might produce unexpected results. You can find the one used in the interface com.algolia.search.Defaults.DEFAULT_OBJECT_MAPPER.

Async & Future

All methods of the AsyncAPIClient are exactly the same as the APIClient but returns CompletableFuture<?>. All other classes are prefixes with Async. You can also pass an optional ExecutorService to the build of the AsyncHttpAPIClientBuilder.

Quick Start

In 30 seconds, this quick start tutorial will show you how to index and search objects.

Initialize the client

To begin, you will need to initialize the client. In order to do this you will need your Application ID and API Key. You can find both on your Algolia account.

APIClient client = new ApacheAPIClientBuilder("YourApplicationID", "YourAPIKey").build();

For the asynchronous version:

AsyncAPIClient client = new AsyncHttpAPIClientBuilder("YourApplicationID", "YourAPIKey").build();

For Google AppEngine:

APIClient client = new AppEngineAPIClientBuilder("YourApplicationID", "YourAPIKey").build();

Push data

Without any prior configuration, you can start indexing contacts in the contacts index using the following code:

class Contact {

	private String firstname;
	private String lastname;
	private int followers;
	private String company;

	//Getters/Setters ommitted
}

Index<Contact> index = client.initIndex("contacts", Contact.class);
index.addObject(new Contact()
      .setFirstname("Jimmie")
      .setLastname("Barninger")
      .setFollowers(93)
      .setCompany("California Paint"));
index.addObject(new JSONObject()
      .setFirstname("Warren")
      .setLastname("Speach")
      .setFollowers(42)
      .setCompany("Norwalk Crmc"));

If you prefer the async version:

AsyncIndex<Contact> index = client.initIndex("contacts", Contact.class);
index.addObject(new Contact()
      .setFirstname("Jimmie")
      .setLastname("Barninger")
      .setFollowers(93)
      .setCompany("California Paint"));
index.addObject(new JSONObject()
      .setFirstname("Warren")
      .setLastname("Speach")
      .setFollowers(42)
      .setCompany("Norwalk Crmc"));

Configure

Settings can be customized to fine tune the search behavior. For example, you can add a custom sort by number of followers to further enhance the built-in relevance:

//Sync & Async version

index.setSettings(new IndexSettings().setCustomRanking(Collections.singletonList("desc(followers)")));

You can also configure the list of attributes you want to index by order of importance (most important first).

Note: The Algolia engine is designed to suggest results as you type, which means you'll generally search by prefix. In this case, the order of attributes is very important to decide which hit is the best:

//Sync & Async version

index.setSettings(new IndexSettings().setSearchableAttributes(
	Arrays.asList("lastname", "firstname", "company")
);

Search

You can now search for contacts using firstname, lastname, company, etc. (even with typos):

//Sync version

// search by firstname
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("jimmie")));
// search a firstname with typo
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("jimie")));
// search for a company
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("california paint")));
// search for a firstname & company
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("jimmie paint")));

//Async version

// search by firstname
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("jimmie")).get());
// search a firstname with typo
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("jimie")).get());
// search for a company
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("california paint")).get());
// search for a firstname & company
System.out.println(index.search(new Query("jimmie paint")).get());

Search UI

Warning: If you are building a web application, you may be more interested in using one of our frontend search UI librairies

The following example shows how to build a front-end search quickly using InstanSearch.js

index.html

<!doctype html>
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/instantsearch.js/1/instantsearch.min.css">
</head>
<body>
  <header>
    <div>
       <input id="search-input" placeholder="Search for products">
       <!-- We use a specific placeholder in the input to guides users in their search. -->
    
  </header>
  <main>
      
      
  </main>

  <script type="text/html" id="hit-template">
    
      <p class="hit-name">{{{_highlightResult.firstname.value}}} {{{_highlightResult.lastname.value}}}</p>
    
  </script>

  <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/instantsearch.js/1/instantsearch.min.js"></script>
  <script src="app.js"></script>
</body>

app.js

var search = instantsearch({
  // Replace with your own values
  appId: 'YourApplicationID',
  apiKey: 'YourSearchOnlyAPIKey', // search only API key, no ADMIN key
  indexName: 'contacts',
  urlSync: true
});

search.addWidget(
  instantsearch.widgets.searchBox({
    container: '#search-input'
  })
);

search.addWidget(
  instantsearch.widgets.hits({
    container: '#hits',
    hitsPerPage: 10,
    templates: {
      item: document.getElementById('hit-template').innerHTML,
      empty: "We didn't find any results for the search <em>\"{{query}}\"</em>"
    }
  })
);

search.start();

Getting Help

• Need help? Ask a question to the Algolia Community or on Stack Overflow.
• Found a bug? You can open a GitHub issue.