Engine overview

searx is a metasearch-engine, so it uses different search engines to provide better results.

Because there is no general search API which could be used for every search engine, an adapter has to be built between searx and the external search engines. Adapters are stored under the folder searx/engines.

general engine configuration

It is required to tell searx the type of results the engine provides. The arguments can be set in the engine file or in the settings file (normally settings.yml). The arguments in the settings file override the ones in the engine file.

It does not matter if an option is stored in the engine file or in the settings. However, the standard way is the following:

engine file

argument type information
categories list pages, in which the engine is working
paging boolean support multible pages
language_support boolean support language choosing

settings.yml

argument type information
name string name of search-engine
engine string name of searx-engine (filename without .py)
shortcut string shortcut of search-engine
timeout string specific timeout for search-engine

overrides

A few of the options have default values in the engine, but are often overwritten by the settings. If None is assigned to an option in the engine file, it has to be redefined in the settings, otherwise searx will not start with that engine.

The naming of overrides is arbitrary. But the recommended overrides are the following:

argument type information
base_url string base-url, can be overwritten to use same engine on other URL
number_of_results int maximum number of results per request
language string ISO code of language and country like en_US
api_key string api-key if required by engine

example code

# engine dependent config
categories = ['general']
paging = True
language_support = True

making a request

To perform a search an URL have to be specified. In addition to specifying an URL, arguments can be passed to the query.

passed arguments

These arguments can be used to construct the search query. Furthermore, parameters with default value can be redefined for special purposes.

argument type default-value, information
url string ''
method string 'GET'
headers set {}
data set {}
cookies set {}
verify boolean True
headers.User-Agent string a random User-Agent
category string current category, like 'general'
started datetime current date-time
pageno int current pagenumber
language string specific language code like 'en_US', or 'all' if unspecified

parsed arguments

The function def request(query, params): always returns the params variable. Inside searx, the following paramters can be used to specify a search request:

argument type information
url string requested url
method string HTTP request method
headers set HTTP header information
data set HTTP data information (parsed if method != 'GET')
cookies set HTTP cookies
verify boolean Performing SSL-Validity check

example code

# search-url
base_url = 'https://example.com/'
search_string = 'search?{query}&page={page}'

# do search-request
def request(query, params):
    search_path = search_string.format(
        query=urlencode({'q': query}),
        page=params['pageno'])

    params['url'] = base_url + search_path

    return params

returned results

Searx is able to return results of different media-types. Currently the following media-types are supported:

  • default
  • images
  • videos
  • torrent
  • map

To set another media-type as default, the parameter template must be set to the desired type.

default

result-parameter information
url string, which is representing the url of the result
title string, which is representing the title of the result
content string, which is giving a general result-text
publishedDate datetime.datetime, represent when the result is published

images

to use this template, the parameter

result-parameter information
template is set to images.html
url string, which is representing the url to the result site
title string, which is representing the title of the result (partly implemented)
content (partly implemented)
publishedDate datetime.datetime, represent when the result is published (partly implemented)
img_src string, which is representing the url to the result image
thumbnail_src string, which is representing the url to a small-preview image

videos

result-parameter information
template is set to videos.html
url string, which is representing the url of the result
title string, which is representing the title of the result
content (not implemented yet)
publishedDate datetime.datetime, represent when the result is published
thumbnail string, which is representing the url to a small-preview image

torrent

result-parameter information
template is set to `torrent.html`
url string, which is representing the url of the result
title string, which is representing the title of the result
content string, which is giving a general result-text
publishedDate datetime.datetime, represent when the result is published (not implemented yet)
seed int, number of seeder
leech int, number of leecher
filesize int, size of file in bytes
files int, number of files
magnetlink string, which is the magnetlink of the result
torrentfile string, which is the torrentfile of the result

map

result-parameter information
url string, which is representing the url of the result
title string, which is representing the title of the result
content string, which is giving a general result-text
publishedDate datetime.datetime, represent when the result is published
latitude latitude of result (in decimal format)
longitude longitude of result (in decimal format)
boundingbox boundingbox of result (array of 4. values [lat-min, lat-max, lon-min, lon-max])
geojson geojson of result (http://geojson.org)
osm.type type of osm-object (if OSM-Result)
osm.id id of osm-object (if OSM-Result)
address.name name of object
address.road street adress of object
address.house_number house number of object
address.locality city, place of object
address.postcode postcode of object
address.country country of object