Faceting is the mechanism provided by Solr to categorize results in a meaningful arrangement on indexed fields. Using faceting, the end user will be provided with categorized results, along with a matching count for that search. Now the user can explore the search results, drill down to any result, and thus find an exactly matching result in which they are interested.
There are many types of faceting provided by Solr. Here is a list of faceting types that Solr currently supports:
- Range faceting
- Pivot (decision tree) faceting
- Interval faceting
We will explore these later in this chapter. But to configure any faceting in Solr, first we have to configure the related parameters. So let's understand faceting parameters first.