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| Baloo is a metadata and search framework for KDE. | | Baloo is a metadata and search framework for KDE. |
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| '''Mailing List: ''' kde-devel@kde.org <br/>
| | This page is now moved to [http://community.kde.org/Baloo/Architecture community.kde.org] |
| '''IRC Channel:''' #baloo on freenode
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| == Architecture ==
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| Baloo focuses on decentralization of data, and does not have any central database. At its core it is a set of 3 services -
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| * Data Stores
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| * Search Stores
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| * Relations
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| === Data Store ===
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| A Data Store is a place to permanently store data. Its format and APIs are not dictated by Baloo, and can in any way that is most efficient for the data in question.
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| === Search Store ===
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| A Search Store is a plugin which provides search capabilities for a specific kind of data. Each of these stores provide a plugin which can be used to search through the data using a consistent API. At this moment there are 3 search stores that have been implemented -
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| * File Search
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| * Email Search
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| * Contact Search
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| Each Store can also provide custom APIs for searching the data.
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| === Relations ===
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| Baloo can be used to create relations between two uniquely identifiable identifiers. The key aspect is that when creating a relation between A and B, both of them are uniquely identifiable. For most of the PIM data, Akonadi already provides a unique identifier of the 'akonadi:?item=x'. For File data, Baloo provides unique identifiers of the form 'file:x'.
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| Each relation is stored in an independent store in the desired mechanism. A sample sqlite implementation is provided which maps both the identifiers in a 2 column sqlite database.
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| For example, there exists a TagRelation which maps a Tag and any unique identifier. Similarly, there can be an ActivityRelation, and relations for other aspects such as mapping a file received via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth device.
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| == Implementation ==
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| === Files ===
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| Baloo concentrates heavily on files, and provides both a data store and search store for files. These are stored using a combination of sqlite and xapian.
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| === Akonadi ===
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| In the case of PIM, since Akonadi already stores (caches) the data, only a Search Store is required. There are currently separate search stores for contacts and emails. They are both implemented using Xapian.
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| === Tags ===
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| Tags are stored in a custom format. In order to relate tags with files / email, a TagRelation is provided.
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