websoc-fuzzy-search

A proof of concept fuzzy search using cached WebSOC data.

Installation

$ npm install --save websoc-fuzzy-search

Documentation

Types

CourseLevel

CourseLevel is an integer literal that holds one of the following values.

Literal Value	Meaning
0	Lower Division courses (1-99)
1	Upper Division courses (100-199)
2	Graduate/Professional Only courses (200+)

GECategory

GECategory is a string literal that holds one of the following values.

Literal Value	Meaning
GE-1A	Lower Division Writing
GE-1B	Upper Division Writing
GE-2	Science and Technology
GE-3	Social and Behavioral Sciences
GE-4	Arts and Humanities
GE-5A	Quantitative Literacy
GE-5B	Formal Reasoning
GE-6	Language other than English
GE-7	Multicultural Studies
GE-8	International/Global Issues

ResultType

ResultType is a string literal that holds one of the following values. The internal value is used to sort the final response.

Literal Value	Internal Value
GE_CATEGORY	4
DEPARTMENT	3
COURSE	2
INSTRUCTOR	1

FilterOptions

FilterOptions represents any desired Metadata attributes in the final result(s). It has four possible fields, all of which are optional.

A list of acceptable values for departments and schools can be found in the source data here.

Field	Type	Description
courseLevel	CourseLevel[]	The course level(s) to match. (Courses only)
geList	GECategory[]	The GE categor(y/ies) to match. (Courses only)
department	string[]	The department(s) to match. (Courses and Instructors)
school	string[]	The school(s) to match. (Courses and Instructors)

SearchParams

SearchParams represents the parameters for which to search. It has four possible fields, all of which are optional.

Field	Type	Description
query	string	The search query.
numResults	number	The maximum number of results to return.
resultType	ResultType	Which type of result to return exclusively.
filterOptions	FilterOptions	Any Metadata attributes the result(s) must possess.

SearchResult

SearchResult represents a single object matched by the fuzzy search process.

Field	Type	Description
type	ResultType	The type of the result matched.
name	string	The descriptive name of the result matched.
metadata	any	Any metadata relevant to the result matched. (Optional)

Two interfaces extend upon this interface; each has a different type for the metadata field and its own type guard function for TypeScript compatibility.

CourseMetadata

Field	Type	Description
department	string	The department that offers this course.
number	string	The course number.
geList	GECategory[]	GE categor(y/ies), if any, this course satisfies.
courseLevel	CourseLevel	The level of this course.
school	string	The school/academic unit this course falls under.

InstructorMetadata

Field	Type	Description
ucinetid	string	The instructor's UCINetID.
school	string[]	The school(s) to which this instructor belong(s).
department	string[]	The department to which this instructor belongs.

Functions

search

Signature: search(params?: SearchParams): Record<string, SearchResult>

Performs a fuzzy-search query based on the parameters given (if any), and returns a mapping of unique string identifiers to SearchResult objects.

isCourseSearchResult and isInstructorSearchResult

These type guard functions are provided for TypeScript-based projects and are fairly self-explanatory.