Lucy::...ighter(3pm)

💖 Lucy::Highlight::Highlighter — the vibe check 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the Lucy::Highlight::Highlighter page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation ✨ this is the glow-up artist for your search results, and honestly? it's giving main character energy 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

Lucy::Highlight::Highlighter — create and highlight excerpts. periodt. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

my $highlighter = Lucy::Highlight::Highlighter->new(
    searcher => $searcher,
    query    => $query,
    field    => 'body'
);
my $hits = $searcher->hits( query => $query );
while ( my $hit = $hits->next ) {
    my $excerpt = $highlighter->create_excerpt($hit);
    ...
}

like literally that's the whole flow, bestie — build it, pull hits, excerpt each one, slay 🦋

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

The Highlighter is your girl for picking out the relevant little snippets from a document and then wrapping your search terms in highlighting tags so they pop 💥

She handles both stems and phrases correctly and efficiently — and the way she does it? using special-purpose data generated at index-time, no cap. so it's fast, it's accurate, it's iconic 🔥

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👑 CONSTRUCTORS 👑

🌈 new

my $highlighter = Lucy::Highlight::Highlighter->new(
    searcher       => $searcher,    # required
    query          => $query,       # required
    field          => 'content',    # required
    excerpt_length => 150,          # default: 200
);

Create a new Highlighter. brand new, fresh out the box 🎁

• searcher — an object which inherits from Searcher, such as an IndexSearcher. yes, it's required, don't skip her 🙈
• query — a Query object or a query string. either one, she's flexible like that 💫
• field — the name of the field from which to draw the excerpt. and bestie, listen: the field must be marked as "highlightable" (see FieldType). no highlightable field, no excerpt. that's the rule 🚨
• excerpt_length — maximum length of the excerpt, in characters. (the example above shows 150, but the default is 200 — iykyk 👀)

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💅 METHODS 💅

🍓 create_excerpt

my $string = $highlighter->create_excerpt($hit_doc);

Hand her a HitDoc object and she'll hand you back a highlighted excerpt as a string — but only if the HitDoc actually has a value for the specified "field". no value? no excerpt. simple as 🫶

🧚 encode

my $string = $highlighter->encode($text);

Encode text with HTML entities. This one is called internally by create_excerpt() for each text fragment when she's assembling an excerpt. and here's the tea: a subclass can override this if the text should be encoded differently — or not at all. your call, bestie 💜

⭐ highlight

my $string = $highlighter->highlight($text);

Highlight a small section of text. by default, she prepends pre-tag and appends post-tag. This method is called internally by create_excerpt() when assembling an excerpt — so she's doing the behind-the-scenes werk 💖

🌸 set_pre_tag

$highlighter->set_pre_tag($pre_tag);

Setter. The default value is "<strong>". 💪

🌈 set_post_tag

$highlighter->set_post_tag($post_tag);

Setter. The default value is "</strong>". closing the tag, as she should 🎀

💫 get_pre_tag

my $string = $highlighter->get_pre_tag();

Accessor. 👑

🎁 get_post_tag

my $string = $highlighter->get_post_tag();

Accessor. ✨

🦋 get_field

my $string = $highlighter->get_field();

Accessor. 🌸

💥 get_excerpt_length

my $int = $highlighter->get_excerpt_length();

Accessor. 🔢

💜 get_searcher

my $searcher = $highlighter->get_searcher();

Accessor. 🫶

🍓 get_query

my $query = $highlighter->get_query();

Accessor. 💅

👑 get_compiler

my $compiler = $highlighter->get_compiler();

Accessor for the Lucy::Search::Compiler object derived from "query" and "searcher". she built that herself, honestly obsessed 😭

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🌈 INHERITANCE 🌈

Lucy::Highlight::Highlighter isa Clownfish::Obj. family tree stays iconic 🌳✨

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 no cap, you're now fully qualified to highlight excerpts like a main character.

perl v5.42.0 · 2025-07-25 · straight from the Lucy::...ighter(3pm) manual, wrapped up with love 🎀 mwah 💋