Knowledge Discovery 25.4
Knowledge Discovery Expert

# Add a Synonym Content component

Setting up a dedicated Content component to handle synonyms is a much more scalable solution than simply activating synonym support in a Content index. A further benefit is that it is easier to update the synonyms, making this solution more dynamic. The dedicated synonym Contentholds documents that are simply lists of synonymous terms. A simple query to this server then returns the lists of synonyms.

## Configuration

Firstly, you must set up a Content by following the normal process. Then you must index the synonym documents.

When you configure the field processing section of the Content configuration file, consider the following synonym document IDX:

    #DREREFERRENCE Syn1.txt
    #DRECONTENT cat feline grimalkin moggy mouser tabby kitten
    #DREENDDOC

You must use this format for all your synonym documents, where:

`#DREREFERENCE` | is a unique reference string for the synonym document.
`#DRECONTENT` | is a list of synonymous terms, separated by carriage returns or spaces (you cannot use phrases as synonyms).
`#DREENDDOC` | is the normal delimiter for the end of a document.

The usual method of producing synonym IDX files is to use a HTTP Connector to process a thesaurus web site. With this method, you can also automatically index the documents. However, you can generate the files in any way, as long as the IDX is valid.

## Usage

When you want to expand a query with synonyms, your user interface must send a query to the synonym server, for every term that it requires synonyms for. The server responds with the synonyms that can be added to the original query term. After all the synonyms have been processed, and the query text adjusted, the user interface sends the expanded query to the normal data server.

TIP: When you expand the query, you can improve your synonym matching by using the `SYNONYM` query operator. This operator specifies a list of synonymous terms to search for. In the query, Content returns results that contain any of the synonyms, but treats all the synonyms as a single term for result scoring. For example:

    SYNONYM(cat feline grimalkin moggy mouser tabby kitten)

For more information, refer to the Knowledge Discovery Administration Guide.

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Version 25.4 | Last updated October 2025

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Product: Knowledge Discovery 25.4

Topic Title: Add a Synonym Content component