box-o-sand/rails/hamster/app/helpers/solr_helper.rb

module SolrHelper
  $select_url = 'http://localhost:8983/solr/select/'
  $redis = '/home/me/repos/redis.git/src/redis-cli'

  def get_results(search)
    cached = `#{$redis} GET "query:#{search}"`

    if cached.strip().length > 0
      # puts "cached=#{cached}"
      xml_results = REXML::Document.new cached
    else
      raw_results = open("#{$select_url}?q=#{search}").read
      # puts "caching '#{raw_results}'"
      `#{$redis} SET "query:#{search}" '#{raw_results}'`

      xml_results = REXML::Document.new raw_results
    end

    results = []
    REXML::XPath.each(xml_results, '//result/doc') do |doc|
      results.push({
        :id => doc.elements['./str[@name="id"]'],
        :description => doc.elements['./str[@name="name"]']
      })
    end

    return results
  end

end