I've had a look at Google, CPAN and here via SuperSearch, but "search" is such a popular term that it's hard to find what I want.

I wish to provide users of my site with a Simple search function. I will have about 1500 small pages of HTML built from XML, and I'd like to allow users to search them (free-text). The pages will be built via XSLT from XML, so I have the option to dump XML meta-data out to an index file should that be useful. I don't expect a lot of load but you never know...

I have two phases to the project, get a quick demo working within a month, on a much reduced data set, and then get a solid proposal together for a serious long term solution. The final machine will be a average BSD box, running Apache/mod_Perl/MySQL (though this is configurable).

My questions are:

• Are there any simple scripts lying around that will suffice for the demo? I gather there is a NMS Search, any more?
• Is it easy to build something from scratch that will work okay for a demo? and where do I look for guidance?
• Does anyone have estimates how far I can push a simple script before I need something heavier duty?
• A nice Perl based search engine that works in batch mode (on a fast devleopment server over night, under low load), and the has a quick search CGI that uses that nicely generated index would be useful, anyone know of one?

Ideally I'd like a Perl based solution that costs nothing and works..... Buying a copy of Verity Search isn't an option, and I'd like to avoid paying someone like Google a lot of money if it's not used much. Thoughts, insights and tips warmly welcomed.

As ever, many thanks in advance....

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