Benefits: Why do this?

Imagine a man in the middle that knows your search term before you and performs the search prior, and then returns the result instantly when you pressed enter. The result is the same, except it would be very much faster. That is what a cache does, it speeds up the process. It also allows for a more comprehensive search, if I could perform searches across all the search engines, compile, optimize and store that data on disk all the while awaiting the user to search the keyword, when the term was searched again, the result would be not only fast but comprehensive.

Moreover, it could turn searXNG into a full search engine built from caching results, secondly offline searching becomes possible if the cache gets big enough.

Searx is privacy focused search engine, so disclosure to end user that however anonymous, caching requires keywords/search term sharing. That is how the cache is built. Opt out.

Proposed searXNG options:

• use cache
• update the cache daily

File in question: __init__.py

class Search:
    """Search information container"""

    __slots__ = "search_query", "result_container", "start_time", "actual_timeout"

 
    def search_multiple_requests(self, requests):
        # pylint: disable=protected-access
        search_id = str(uuid4())

        for engine_name, query, request_params in requests:
            _search = copy_current_request_context(PROCESSORS[engine_name].search)
            th = threading.Thread(  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
                target=_search,
                args=(query, request_params, self.result_container, self.start_time, self.actual_timeout),
                name=search_id,
            )
            th._timeout = False
            th._engine_name = engine_name
            th.start()

        for th in threading.enumerate():  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
            if th.name == search_id:
                remaining_time = max(0.0, self.actual_timeout - (default_timer() - self.start_time))
                th.join(remaining_time)
                if th.is_alive():
                    th._timeout = True
                    self.result_container.add_unresponsive_engine(th._engine_name, 'timeout')
                    PROCESSORS[th._engine_name].logger.error('engine timeout')


    def search_multiple_requests2(self, requests):
        # pylint: disable=protected-access
        search_id = str(uuid4())
        mock_result_container = ResultContainer()
        mock_results = [{'url': f'Mock Result {i}', 'content': ''} for i in range(1, 6)]

        threads = []

        for engine_name, _, _ in requests:
            th = threading.Thread(
                target=self.mock_search_function,
                args=(engine_name, mock_results, mock_result_container),
                name=search_id,
            )
            th._timeout = False
            th._engine_name = engine_name
            th.start()
            threads.append(th)

        remaining_time = None
        for th in threads:
            if th.name == search_id:
                if remaining_time is None:
                    remaining_time = self.actual_timeout - (default_timer() - self.start_time)
                th.join(remaining_time)
                if th.is_alive():
                    th._timeout = True
                    self.result_container.add_unresponsive_engine(th._engine_name, 'timeout')
                    PROCESSORS[th._engine_name].logger.error('engine timeout')

        # Wait for all threads to finish, even if some have timed out
        for th in threads:
            th.join()

        # Copy the mock results to the actual result_container
        self.result_container = mock_result_container

    def mock_search_function(self, engine_name, mock_results, result_container):
        # This is a mock search function
        time.sleep(0.1)  # Simulate some processing time
        result_container.extend(engine_name, mock_results)

    def search_standard(self):
        """
        Update self.result_container, self.actual_timeout
        """
        requests, self.actual_timeout = self._get_requests()

        cache_dir = 'cache'
        query_file_path = os.path.join(cache_dir, self.search_query.query)

        # send all search-request
        if requests:
            # Check if the file exists in the cache directory
            if os.path.isfile(query_file_path):
                self.search_multiple_requests2(requests)
            else:
                self.search_multiple_requests(requests)

        # return results, suggestions, answers and infoboxes
        return True

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