Pyndri: a Python Interface to the Indri Search Engine

TL;DR

Pyndri is a Python interface that enables easy access to Indri search engine indexes, facilitating reproducible and efficient information retrieval research in Python.

Contribution

It provides a new Python interface to Indri, allowing access to indexes and query evaluation, promoting open and reproducible IR research.

Findings

Enables access to Indri indexes from Python

Supports dictionary, tokenized documents, and query evaluation

Aims to accelerate IR research and reproducibility

Abstract

We introduce pyndri, a Python interface to the Indri search engine. Pyndri allows to access Indri indexes from Python at two levels: (1) dictionary and tokenized document collection, (2) evaluating queries on the index. We hope that with the release of pyndri, we will stimulate reproducible, open and fast-paced IR research.