Course Search Application with Spring Boot and Elasticsearch

This project is a Spring Boot application demonstrating full-text search and autocomplete (suggestions) functionalities using Elasticsearch. It allows users to search for courses based on various criteria and get real-time suggestions as they type.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Technologies Used
• Prerequisites
• Setup and Running the Application
  • Start Elasticsearch (using Docker)
  • Build and Run the Spring Boot Application
• API Endpoints
  • Get All Courses (or Initial Search Results)
  • Search Courses by Query and Filters
  • Get Autocomplete Suggestions
• Project Structure Highlights

Features

• Full-Text Search: Search courses by keywords in titles and descriptions.
• Filtered Search: Filter courses by category, type, minimum/maximum age, and price range.
• Autocomplete Suggestions: Get real-time course title/keyword suggestions as you type using Elasticsearch's Completion Suggester.
• Automatic Data Loading: On application startup, it automatically deletes the existing Elasticsearch index (if any), creates a new one with custom mappings/settings, and bulk indexes 50 randomly generated sample courses using JavaFaker.

Technologies Used

• Java 21.0.4
• Spring Boot 3.2.5
• Elasticsearch 8.11.3
• Elasticsearch Java API Client (co.elastic.clients)
• Maven (for dependency management and build)
• Lombok (for boilerplate code reduction)
• JavaFaker 1.0.2 (for generating sample data)
• Docker (for running Elasticsearch)

Prerequisites

Before running this application, ensure you have the following installed:

• Java Development Kit (JDK) 21 or later.
• Apache Maven 3.x or later.
• Docker Desktop (or Docker Engine) - essential for running Elasticsearch.

Setup and Running the Application

Follow these steps to get the application up and running:

Start Elasticsearch (using Docker)

Navigate to the root directory of your project where your docker-compose.yml file is located (typically course-search/).

cd /path/to/your/project/course-search
docker-compose up -d