Fulltext indexes

This is an introduction to ArangoDB’s fulltext indexes.

Introduction to Fulltext Indexes

A fulltext index can be used to find words, or prefixes of words inside documents.

A fulltext index can be defined on one attribute only, and will include all words contained in documents that have a textual value in the index attribute. Since ArangoDB 2.6 the index will also include words from the index attribute if the index attribute is an array of strings, or an object with string value members.

For example, given a fulltext index on the translations attribute and the following documents, then searching for лиса using the fulltext index would return only the first document. Searching for the index for the exact string Fox would return the first two documents, and searching for prefix:Fox would return all three documents:

{ translations: { en: "fox", de: "Fuchs", fr: "renard", ru: "лиса" } }
{ translations: "Fox is the English translation of the German word Fuchs" }
{ translations: [ "ArangoDB", "document", "database", "Foxx" ] }

Note that deeper nested objects are ignored. For example, a fulltext index on translations would index Fuchs, but not fox, given the following document structure:

{ translations: { en: { US: "fox" }, de: "Fuchs" }

If you need to search across multiple fields and/or nested objects, you may write all the strings into a special attribute, which you then create the index on (it might be necessary to clean the strings first, e.g. remove line breaks and strip certain words).

If the index attribute is neither a string, an object or an array, its contents will not be indexed. When indexing the contents of an array attribute, an array member will only be included in the index if it is a string. When indexing the contents of an object attribute, an object member value will only be included in the index if it is a string. Other data types are ignored and not indexed.

Accessing Fulltext Indexes from the Shell

Ensures that a fulltext index exists:

collection.ensureIndex({ type: "fulltext", fields: [ "field" ], minLength: minLength })

Creates a fulltext index on all documents on attribute field.

Fulltext indexes are implicitly sparse: all documents which do not have the specified field attribute or that have a non-qualifying value in their field attribute will be ignored for indexing.

Only a single attribute can be indexed. Specifying multiple attributes is unsupported.

The minimum length of words that are indexed can be specified via the minLength parameter. Words shorter than minLength characters will not be indexed. minLength has a default value of 2, but this value might be changed in future versions of ArangoDB. It is thus recommended to explicitly specify this value.

In case that the index was successfully created, an object with the index details is returned.

arangosh> db.example.ensureIndex({ type: "fulltext", fields: [ "text" ], minLength: 3 });
arangosh> db.example.save({ text : "the quick brown", b : { c : 1 } });
arangosh> db.example.save({ text : "quick brown fox", b : { c : 2 } });
arangosh> db.example.save({ text : "brown fox jums", b : { c : 3 } });
arangosh> db.example.save({ text : "fox jumps over", b : { c : 4 } });
arangosh> db.example.save({ text : "jumps over the", b : { c : 5 } });
arangosh> db.example.save({ text : "over the lazy", b : { c : 6 } });
arangosh> db.example.save({ text : "the lazy dog", b : { c : 7 } });
arangosh> db._query("FOR document IN FULLTEXT(example, 'text', 'the') RETURN document");

{ 
  "fields" : [ 
    "text" 
  ], 
  "id" : "example/71932", 
  "isNewlyCreated" : true, 
  "minLength" : 3, 
  "name" : "idx_1733157480686419969", 
  "sparse" : true, 
  "type" : "fulltext", 
  "unique" : false, 
  "code" : 201 
}
{ 
  "_id" : "example/71936", 
  "_key" : "71936", 
  "_rev" : "_eLYWtGG--A" 
}
{ 
  "_id" : "example/71938", 
  "_key" : "71938", 
  "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK---" 
}
{ 
  "_id" : "example/71940", 
  "_key" : "71940", 
  "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--_" 
}
{ 
  "_id" : "example/71942", 
  "_key" : "71942", 
  "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--A" 
}
{ 
  "_id" : "example/71944", 
  "_key" : "71944", 
  "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--B" 
}
{ 
  "_id" : "example/71946", 
  "_key" : "71946", 
  "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--C" 
}
{ 
  "_id" : "example/71948", 
  "_key" : "71948", 
  "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--D" 
}
[ 
  { 
    "_key" : "71936", 
    "_id" : "example/71936", 
    "_rev" : "_eLYWtGG--A", 
    "text" : "the quick brown", 
    "b" : { 
      "c" : 1 
    } 
  }, 
  { 
    "_key" : "71944", 
    "_id" : "example/71944", 
    "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--B", 
    "text" : "jumps over the", 
    "b" : { 
      "c" : 5 
    } 
  }, 
  { 
    "_key" : "71946", 
    "_id" : "example/71946", 
    "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--C", 
    "text" : "over the lazy", 
    "b" : { 
      "c" : 6 
    } 
  }, 
  { 
    "_key" : "71948", 
    "_id" : "example/71948", 
    "_rev" : "_eLYWtGK--D", 
    "text" : "the lazy dog", 
    "b" : { 
      "c" : 7 
    } 
  } 
]
[object ArangoQueryCursor, count: 4, cached: false, hasMore: false]

Fulltext AQL Functions

Fulltext AQL functions are detailed in Fulltext functions.