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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.9 and Feautre Pack 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Customizing WebSphere Commerce
You can extend the WebSphere Commerce product to fit your business needs. This topic describes the prerequisite skills and required knowledge that you need to customize business logic. After you have the required knowledge, use WebSphere Commerce Developer to take tutorials that guide you step-by-step through various customization scenarios.
Catalog subsystem
The catalog subsystem is a component of the WebSphere Commerce Server that provides online catalog navigation, partitioning, categorization, and associations. In addition, the catalog subsystem includes support for personalized interest lists and custom catalog display pages. The catalog subsystem contains all logic and data relevant to an online catalog, including catalog groups (or categories), catalog entries, and any associations or relationships among them.
Catalog search methods
WebSphere Commerce offers two search options to address the different needs of customers and administrators. Each of the search formats is based on underlying technology that uses the Catalog Search data bean. The search methods are provided primarily by a search engine and an abstraction layer API from which you can build search features and search tools.
Catalog search bean
The catalog search functionality is implemented by a data bean that generates SQL queries against the database.

Catalog search bean

The catalog search functionality is implemented by a data bean that generates SQL queries against the database.

These queries can perform simple searches based on string combinations or more powerful searches based on Boolean expressions. The search is capable of searching rich attributes as well. You can implement searches based on either product or category. Use the com.ibm.commerce.search.beans.CatEntrySearchListDataBean for a product or item search and the com.ibm.commerce.search.beans.CategorySearchListDataBean for a category search. Furthermore, the catalog search feature underlies the Product Advisor's base search space format.

Note: During development, it is useful to enable tracing on the component WC_SEARCH. By looking at the trace log, you can see the generated SQL.