Debugging Custom Item Processing

Applies to: SharePoint Server 2010

In this article
Debug Item Processing by Using FFDDumper
Enable Item Processing Debug Logging
Submit Test Documents Using docpush

Debug Item Processing by Using FFDDumper

FFDDumper is an optional item processing stage that enables you to dump all crawled property data that is received by FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.

Note

You cannot use this stage to debug the output of custom item processing stages. You can only inspect the content of the crawled properties before they are processed.

You enable the FFDDumper item processing stage in <FASTSearchFolder>\etc\config_data\DocumentProcessor\OptionalProcessing.xml.

<FASTSearchFolder> is the name of your FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint installation directory, for example C:\FASTSearch.

For more information, see Configuring Optional Item Processing.

FFDDumper outputs debug data to the following directory:

<FASTSearchFolder>\data\ffd\

Each line in the debug files contains the following four strings:

  • A number indicating the length of the crawled property name

  • The name of the crawled property

  • The character "s", followed by a number indicating the length of the crawled property

  • The content of the crawled property

Note

You must only enable this stage during testing, as it has major impact on the feed rate and may quickly fill up the local hard disk.

Enable Item Processing Debug Logging

You can enable item processing debug logging to see errors and warnings from the item processing stages. Type the following command.

psctrl debug on

You can access the debug log files in the following directory.

<FASTSearchFolder>\var\log\procserver\

Note

You must only enable debug logging during testing, as it has major impact on the feed rate and may quickly fill up the local hard disk.

To disable item processing debug logging, type the following command.

psctrl debug off

Submit Test Documents Using docpush

You can use the docpush command to submit a text file or an XML file as a simple test item.

docpush -c <collection> -u file:/// <file>

This command submits the file named <file> to the pipeline, and uses the content collection named <collection>. You can use the default content collection named sp, or you can create a collection for test.

The –u option ensures that the item contains a reasonable URL in query results. You can run the command on any server in the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint farm.

The following example creates a new content collection named test, and submits a test document.

New-FASTSearchContentCollection -Name test
docpush -c test -u file:/// c:\test\test.xml

You can delete the test items in two ways, as follows:

  • Delete individual items using docpush. You can use the same syntax, but you must add the –d option.

    docpush -c <collection> –d -u file:/// <file>
    
  • You can remove all the documents in the content collection. In a FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint command shell, run the following command.

    Clear-FASTSearchContentCollection –name "<collection>"
    

For more information, see docpush reference on Microsoft TechNet.

For more information about how to run test queries, see Testing Custom Query Features (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint).

See Also

Concepts

Configuring Optional Item Processing

Creating a Custom Property Extractor

Custom XML Item Processing

Integrating an External Item Processing Component