Using Sources and Source Bundles

A source is the part of a Watson™ Explorer Engine platform application that identifies the data that you wish to search, provides the configuration data required to connect to that data, retrieves search results, and (if necessary) converts them into the format used by Watson Explorer Engine platform applications. A source contains a form, which is used (when necessary) to convert a user's query into the syntax required to access the data that you want to search, and a parser, which is used (when necessary) to translate search results into the results format that is used internally by Watson Explorer Engine platform applications.

Sources that are used to query and retrieve search results from search engines other than Watson Explorer Engine search engines are more complex than those that are used with Watson Explorer Engine search collections. Sources that are used with Watson Explorer Engine platform search collections are referred to as VSE sources (Watson Explorer Engine Search Engine sources).

Source bundles act as packages of sources, and are useful for identifying sets of sources that you want to handle in the same way. Common uses of source bundles are to identify sets of sources that you want to share across multiple search applications, to define sets of sources that you want to use together (for example, on the same search tab in your application), and so on.