Content Component 26.1
Content Component Help

# BitFieldType Fields

If you have documents that can be part of several different document sets, you can use BitFieldType fields to efficiently store information on which sets the documents belong to.

The value in a BitFieldType field is a hexadecimal number, which in turn represents a binary number. The binary number is a representation of the sets that a document belongs to, with each binary digit representing a particular set of documents. If a document is part of a set, the bit corresponding to that set is a `1`. If a document is not part of that set, the bit is a `0`.

For example, if a document is present in sets 0, 5, 9, 11, 12, and 13, it has the following binary representation:

    11101000100001

where the digit at the furthest right position represents set 0, the digit to the left of set `0` represents set `1` and so on. Set numbers increase from right to left.

This number is the binary representation of the decimal number 14881, and the hexadecimal number `3A21`. Therefore, the `BitField` contains the value `3A21` to indicate that the document is part of these sets:

    #DREFIELD BitField="003A21"

In this way, information on sets can be stored in a single field per document, for an arbitrarily large number of sets.

To set up BitFieldType fields

1. Open the Content component configuration file in a text editor.

2. List a Bit Field process in the `[FieldProcessing]` section. For example:

       [FieldProcessing]
       0=MyFirstProcess
       1=BitFields

3. Create a section for each process that you listed, and in each section, create a property for the process (you define the property later by setting one or more applicable configuration parameters). Identify the fields that you want to associate with the process.

   NOTE: The properties that you create must not have the same name as the processes.

   For example:

       [MyFirstProcess]
       Property=MyProperty
       PropertyFieldCSVs=*/MyField,*/MyOtherField

       [BitFields]
       Property=BitFieldSetFields
       PropertyFieldCSVs=*/WORKBOORK,*/BITFIELD

4. Create a section for the property in which you set the BitFieldType parameter to `True`. This enables Content to store the contents of the PropertyFieldCSVs fields as bit fields. For example:

       [BitFieldSetFields]
       BitFieldType=True

5. To compress the BitField index, set `BitFieldCompressed` to `True` in the property section. For example:

       [BitFieldSetFields]
       BitFieldType=True
       BitFieldCompressed=True

6. Set the `BitFieldMaxMemoryKB` parameter to the maximum memory (in KB) that can be used by BitFieldType fields. If this is zero (the default) there is no limit to the memory.

       [BitFieldSetFields]
       BitFieldType=True
       BitFieldMaxMemoryKB=True

7. If you want to define BitFieldType fields or add extra BitFieldType fields, but have already indexed content into Content, you can set RegenerateBitFieldIndex to `True` in the `[Server]` section. This allows Content to generate the files it requires to internally identify BitFieldType fields on startup, so that you need only to restart Content to able to use BitFieldType fields, rather than having to reindex all your data.

       [Server]
       (...)
       RegenerateBitFieldIndex=True

   You can also use the DREREGENERATE index action to regenerate the BitFieldType index while the server is running.

8. Save and close the configuration file.

9. Restart the Content component for your changes to take effect.

NOTE: Each document that you store in Content must contain only one instance of any particular BitFieldType field.

Copyright 2025 Open Text
Version 26.1 | Last updated January 2026

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Product: Knowledge Discovery Content Component 26.1

Topic Title: BitFieldType Fields