Solr can sometimes feel more prickly than a bag of porcupines. That’s when you need this book.

I received a free copy of this book, to review.

Structure

First, and least important, is that there is no syntax highlighting. I say this every time I review a Packt book, and it’s always as annoying to find.

That aside, this book is well edited. The points are succinct, the grammar palatable and the diction easy to follow.

The book begins with some installation instructions for getting PHP and Solr running. I was at first concerned with the presentation of numerous ways to query the same result, few of which concerned PHP examples, but that quickly passed as the book develops into a handbook for the well-supported PHP library Solarium.

At only 118 pages, I feel it would reach a wider audience by including Solarium in the title, but that’s up to the marketing department I guess…

Content

The content ranges, in difficulty, from the basics of Solr usage to advanced querying and formatting. Along the way, you can learn about how indexing and schemas work in Solr. The book demonstrates every aspect of Solr which it explains, in simple PHP examples.

Unlike most books, the length and presentation of this book allow you to go through it all in a single sitting. It may take a bit longer if you are only first coming into contact with Solr, but every bit of help is provided to get you familiar with how things work.

My experiences with Solr have not always been good, and I would have loved to get my hands on this book in those times. Instead of prattling on about how much I enjoyed it, I recommend you get it for yourself. After all, it costs about the same as a good pizza.