Efficient index updating in a content management system

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one programmable processor, cause a computing system perform operations comprising:

• indexing metadata for content items stored in a repository of a content management system, the indexing resulting in a current metadata index of the content management system, the metadata being associated with one or more content items in the content management system, change to a first type of metadata indicating a change in status and a change in the content of a content item and change to a second type of metadata indicating a change in status but no change in the content of the content item,
• the metadata comprising at least one of a creation date, an edit date, a content access date, a content item size, a content item type or other information describing a corresponding indexed content item,
• the content management system also including a content index for indexing content managed by the content management system, the metadata being indexed more frequently than the content index to support less frequent updating of the content index by way of:
• identifying, based on the current metadata index, a set of content items in the repository that have undergone a change to content;
• in response to the identifying, updating the content index for only the set of content items that have undergone the change to content without initiating a full re-indexing of the content of the content management system;
• selectively updating a content cache for the content management system based on the set of content items that have undergone the change to content;
• and
• merging the current metadata index and the content index into an updated content index for the content management system, in response to a scheduled or triggering event.

A computer-implemented system comprising:

• computer hardware configured to execute instructions that when executed cause the system to perform operations comprising:
• indexing metadata for content items stored in a repository of a content management system, the indexing resulting in a current metadata index of the content management system, the metadata being associated with one or more content items in the content management system, change to a first type of metadata indicating a change in status and a change in the content of a content item and change to a second type of metadata indicating a change in status but no change in the content of the content item,
• the metadata comprising at least one of a creation date, an edit date, a content access date, a content item size, a content item type or other information describing a corresponding indexed content item,
• the content management system also including a content index for indexing content managed by the content management system, the metadata being indexed more frequently than the content index to support less frequent updating of the content index by way of:
• identifying, based on the current metadata index, a set of content items in the repository that have undergone a change to content;
• in response to the identifying, updating the content index for only the set of content items that have undergone the change to content without initiating a full re-indexing of the content of the content management system;
• selectively updating a content cache for the content management system based on the set of content items that have undergone the change to content;
• and
• merging the current metadata index and the content index into an updated content index for the content management system, in response to a scheduled or triggering event.