Key concepts

The Tonita API organizes data through two concepts: listings and corpora.

Listings

Listings are what you search for. When performing search, the Tonita API will return information about relevant listings. For example, a search engine that helps users look for movies might be organized so that each listing represents one movie. Similarly, a search engine that helps users look for apartment rentals might choose to create a listing for each apartment unit.

Listings often come with useful structured information that Tonita can use for search. For example, movies have genres, directors, actors, and release years, while listings for apartment units will typically include things like the number of bedrooms and square footage. The Managing listings page will walk you through how you can provide this information for your own search engine.

Corpora

A corpus (plural “corpora”) is a collection of listings. Every listing belongs to a corpus. When search is performed for a query, it is performed only over listings of a single corpus. Corpora keep your listings organized; you can manage multiple corpora and specify which one to use for any given search request. This can help simplify search for both you and your end users.

For example, consider a search engine for a superstore with diverse departments, from electronics to clothing. Organizing the store’s inventory so that each department’s products receive their own corpus would streamline the management of listings and allow developers to provide a more efficient and precise search experience to users through corpus-specific search and facet restrictions.

See Managing corpora for more information.