Better synonym handling in Solr by Nolan Lawson.
A very deep dive into synonym handling in Solr, along with a proposed fix.
The problems Nolan uncovers are now in a JIRA issue, SOLR-4381.
And Nolan has a Github repository with his proposed fix.
The Solr JIRA lists the issue as still “open.”
Start with the post and then go onward to the JIRA issue and Github repository. I say that because Nolan does a great job detailing the issue he discovered and his proposed solution.
I can think of several other improvements to synonym handling in Solr.
Such as allowing specification of tokens and required values in other fields for synonyms. (An indexing analog to scope.)
Or even allowing Solr queries in a synonym table.
Not to mention making Solr synonym tables by default indexed.
Just to name a few.