Opening up SearchParameters for IndexBinaryHNSW and IndexBinaryIVF

[heemin32]

Summary

IndexBinaryHNSW and IndexBinaryIVF is blocking SearchParameters. Can we open it up? Will there be any issue that I am not aware of?
https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/blob/main/faiss/IndexBinaryHNSW.cpp#L192

[mdouze]

what do you mean with "blocking"?

[heemin32]

what do you mean with "blocking"?

    FAISS_THROW_IF_NOT_MSG(
            !params, "search params not supported for this index");

[mdouze]

Right, search parameters are not supported for most binary indexes. Enabling support is relatively simple, feel free to submit a PR.

[gustavz]

Hi @mdouze is there an update on this or a PR to track? I am looking for search params support for IndexBinaryFlat.
If there is currently no work on it, can you point me to a reference PR that could be used as a base to enable support for that index?

[heemin32]

@gustavz You can take a look at this commit as a reference. heemin32@4d374aa
You can remove following line

    if (params_in && params_in->grp) {
        using RH = GroupedHeapBlockResultHandler<HNSW::C>;
        RH bres(n, distances_f, labels, k, params_in->grp);

        hnsw_search(this, n, x, bres, params_in);
    } else {

[gustavz]

@heemin32 so if thats the code that enables it, why dont you open a PR and get it merged?

[heemin32]

@gustavz I was having hard time to build faiss and add unit test with my mac environment. Especially the python version of unit test, I could not make it runnable.

[gustavz]

@mdouze would you mind making the PR to extend BinaryIndexFlat to support search params?
My C skills are unfortunately not enough :/
I bet this would be a highly appreciated feature as many use binary indexes for RAG applications and they all want to be able to pre-filter their searches by IDs.

[gustavz]

Here is a PR trying to do so, it's mostly cursor generated though: #4055