Add Child SKUs to Magento Fulltext Search Index - magento

Question

I'm not sure why this isn't part of the stock functionality of Magento, but I want customers to be able to search for a configurable product by a child SKU. For some reason, Magento doesn't index the child SKUs.
I found in app/code/core/Mage/CatalogSearch/Model/Resource/Fulltext.php
$dynamicFields = array(
'int' => array_keys($this->_getSearchableAttributes('int')),
'varchar' => array_keys($this->_getSearchableAttributes('varchar')),
'text' => array_keys($this->_getSearchableAttributes('text')),
'decimal' => array_keys($this->_getSearchableAttributes('decimal')),
'datetime' => array_keys($this->_getSearchableAttributes('datetime')),
);
I've tried several variations, without success. SKU is a "static" attribute, accessible through $this->_getSearchableAttributes('static'). I'm fine with getting all static attributes, but it's not working. Depending on what a try I either get no change in results or an error that the static attribute table doesn't exist (which make sense, because static attributes are in the product entity table).
Does anybody have a suggestion to solve this problem?
Online research has found suggestions to add a hidden attribute with these values, but that shouldn't be needed. I would rather solve the problem properly.

Answer 1

So many ways to do this..
However, I will lead with something I believe would be much cleaner rather than screwing around with the actual Fulltext in app/code/core/Mage/CatalogSearch/Model/Resource/Fulltext.php.
The problem is the lines AFTER that snippet you included:
// status and visibility filter
$visibility = $this->_getSearchableAttribute('visibility');
$status = $this->_getSearchableAttribute('status');
$statusVals = Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_status')->getVisibleStatusIds();
$allowedVisibilityValues = $this->_engine->getAllowedVisibility();
which ultimately leads to:
core/Mage/CatalogSearch/Model/Resource/Fulltext/Engine.php
/**
* Retrieve allowed visibility values for current engine
*
* #return array
*/
public function getAllowedVisibility()
{
return Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_visibility')->getVisibleInSearchIds();
}
then:
core/Mage/Catalog/Model/Product/Visibility.php
public function getVisibleInSearchIds()
{
return array(self::VISIBILITY_IN_SEARCH, self::VISIBILITY_BOTH);
}
So what you need to do is go to your simple product associated with your configurable and change the visibility to 'Search'.
However, here it is in action now:
However, yes, that doesn't look pretty at all. The next order of business is now modifying the search results so that when it lists a simple product item that's a.) associated to a configurable product b.) visibility ID is explicitly set to Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_IN_SEARCH, you need to render the item in search results to the actual configurable product parent (and the rest of its details, such as images).
(I'll continue this later. my computer decided to crap out on me, and I lost over 50% of what I was writing. Even the part where we modify the fulltext class! Darn. see you later.)

Answer 2

I've used the method of setting simple product visibility to search. Then instead of displaying the simple product load/display its parent product.
Beside the frontend query in loop performance issues I never found this solution very satisfying. So after another whack at it I found another option.
I'm adding simple product SKUs to the fulltext index for grouped products but the same approach should work for configurable products.
Here is the idea:
Mage_CatalogSearch_Model_Resource_Fulltext->_prepareProductIndex
contains
$typeInstance = $this->_getProductTypeInstance($productData['type_id']);
if ($data = $typeInstance->getSearchableData($product)) {
$index['options'] = $data;
}
So by overriding the getSearchableData method in the product type class you can add data to the fulltext index. For grouped product my updated looked like:
... extends Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Type_Grouped
{
/**
* all child SKUs to search data
*/
public function getSearchableData($product=null)
{
$searchData = parent::getSearchableData();
$adapter = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection('core_read');
$select = $adapter->select()
->from(
array('p' => Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getTableName('catalog/product')),
array('sku')
)
->joinLeft(
array('r' => Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getTableName('catalog/product_relation')),
'r.child_id = p.entity_id',
array()
)
->where('r.parent_id = ?', $this->getProduct($product)->getId());
$query = $adapter->query($select);
while ($row = $query->fetch()) {
$searchData[] = $row['sku'];
}
return $searchData;
}
Reindexed search and catalogsearch_fulltext.dataindex should contain the additional data.

Answer 3

There is a solution for this but it is a paid extension (we license it), it is not build in to Magento standard so you cannot search by child attributes and just return the parent configurable/grouped/bundle product.