Create a custom entity file

If you have a Named Entity Locator that requires a new entity file, this file is not visible to the Natural Language Processing engine until after the engine is restarted. Because of this, it is necessary to stop the NLP engine after the entity file is created to ensure that your changes are available the next time the NLP engine is run. The NLP engine restarts on-demand so that it does not use server resources when not in use.

You can create a new custom entity file and then stop the Natural Language Processing engine by following these steps:

  1. On the Project Tree, click on the Project Project Tree - Project icon node.

    The properties of the project are displayed, including a link to the location of the project file.

  2. Click on the Project path.

    A Windows Explorer window opens to the location of your project.

  3. If it does not already exist, create the following folder structure.

    \Custom\SalienceData\<language>\salience\entities\

    Where <language> is the two-character code for the language that you are using.

  4. Inside the entities folder, create a new folder with the name of the type of entities you are creating.

    The name of the folder, or a singular version of this name, if appropriate, is returned as the Entity Type.

  5. Inside the newly created entity type folder, create a file with the .cdl extension.

    The name of this file is not used by the NLP engine, but ensure the name is useful and descriptive.

  6. Add content to the new .cdl file in the following format.
    Entity Search Text<tab>Entity Type<tab>Normalized Entity Name
  7. Save and close the file.
  8. Navigate to and select the class in the Project Tree where your Named Entity Locator is located.

    The details for that class are displayed.

  9. Scroll down and find the Natural Language Processing group and then click Stop Engine.

    The Natural Language Processing engine stops. The next time the NLP engine is needed, it starts on-demand and your new custom entity file is now visible.