Browsing is a process of traversing the document sets of the index. Each document set is a like a folder or directory, with a single parent and zero or more children. Within each set, index items can be attached. An item can be in multiple document sets.
The browse request consists of the item set to use as a starting point for browsing, plus various parameters to control its behavior. For example, the request can browse the next three levels beneath the initial item set with one request, exclude sets based on their size, and control whether index items are returned and in what order. Browsing can also use the same document constraint mechanism that the search uses (described in Query Constraints section of the Query Component Reference chapter) to filter index items. The response to a browse request is an XML representation of the item sets and index items encountered by the algorithm.
This chapter contains the following sections:
