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Define Field Mappings

On this page

  • Static and Dynamic Mappings
  • Static Mappings
  • Dynamic Mappings
  • Data Types
  • Limitations
  • Index Field as Multiple Data Types
  • Examples
  • Static Mapping Example
  • Combined Mapping Example

When you create an Atlas Search index, you can:

  • Specify the fields to index using static mappings.

  • Configure Atlas Search to automatically index all supported field types using dynamic mappings.

To use static mappings, you must explicitly include the fields in the collection that you want to index. In the type field, specify the data type of the field in the field definition. Alternatively, you can specify an array of field definitions for a field, one for each data type.

Syntax
1"mappings": {
2 "dynamic": <boolean>,
3 "fields": {
4 "<field-name>": [
5 {
6 "type": "<field-type>",
7 ...
8 },
9 ...
10 ],
11 ...
12 }
13}

Note

Unlike compound indexes, the order of fields in the Atlas Search index definition is not important. Fields can be defined in any order.

You can use static and dynamic mappings to specify whether Atlas Search must automatically index all the dynamically indexable fields in your collection.

Use static mappings to configure index options for fields that you don't want indexed dynamically, or to configure a single field independently from others in an index.

For static mappings, set mappings.dynamic to false and specify the fields to index using mappings.fields. Atlas Search indexes only the specified fields with specific options.

Use dynamic mappings if your schema changes regularly or is unknown, or when experimenting with Atlas Search. You can configure an entire index to use dynamic mappings, or specify individual fields, such as fields of type document, to be dynamically mapped. Before using dynamic mappings, see the table for Data Types.

For dynamic mappings, set mappings.dynamic to true. Atlas Search automatically indexes the fields of supported types in each document. For fields of type string, Atlas Search stores the fields on mongot.

Note

Dynamically mapped indexes occupy more disk space than statically mapped indexes and may be less performant.

Atlas Search doesn't support the following BSON data types:

  • Binary Data

  • Decimal128

  • JavaScript code with scope

  • Max key

  • Min key

  • Null

  • Regular Expression

  • Timestamp

The following table enumerates the supported BSON data types and the Atlas Search field types that you can use to index the BSON data types. The table also indicates whether the Atlas Search field type is automatically included in an Atlas Search index when you enable dynamic mappings.

BSON Type
Atlas Search Field Type
Dynamically Indexed
Array
boolean, date, number, objectId, string
Boolean
Date
Date
Double
Double
Double
32-bit integer
32-bit integer
32-bit integer
64-bit integer
64-bit integer
64-bit integer
Object
Object
embeddedDocuments (for array of objects)
ObjectId
String
String
String
String

Some limitations apply. To learn more, see How to Index the Elements of an Array.

Note

You can store fields of all supported data types on Atlas Search using the storedSource option.

Atlas Search doesn't support indexing more than two billion index objects, where each indexed document counts as a single object. If you plan to index fields that might exceed this limit, you must shard your cluster. If you use the embeddedDocuments field type, Atlas Search might index objects over this limit.

To index a field as multiple types, define the types in the field definition array for the field.

Example

The following example shows the field definition for indexing a field as multiple types.

1{
2 ...
3 "mappings": {
4 "dynamic": <boolean>,
5 "fields": {
6 "<field-name>": [
7 {
8 "type": "<field-type>",
9 ...
10 },
11 {
12 "type": "<field-type>",
13 ...
14 },
15 ...
16 ],
17 ...
18 },
19 ...
20 }
21}

The following index definition example uses static mappings.

  • The default index analyzer is lucene.standard.

  • The default search analyzer is lucene.standard. You can change the search analyzer if you want the query term to be parsed differently than how it is stored in your Atlas Search index.

  • The index specifies static field mappings (dynamic: false), which means fields that are not explicitly mentioned are not indexed. So, the index definition includes:

    • The address field, which is of type document. It has two embedded sub-fields, city and state.

      The city sub-field uses the lucene.simple analyzer by default for queries. It uses the ignoreAbove option to ignore any string of more than 255 bytes in length.

      The state sub-field uses the lucene.english analyzer by default for queries.

    • The company field, which is of type string. It uses the lucene.whitespace analyzer by default for queries. It has a multi analyzer named mySecondaryAnalyzer which uses the lucene.french analyzer by default for queries.

      To learn more about multi analyzers, see Path Construction.

    • The employees field, which is an array of strings. It uses the lucene.standard analyzer by default for queries. For indexing arrays, Atlas Search only requires the data type of the array elements. You don't have to specify that the data is contained in an array in the index definition.

{
"analyzer": "lucene.standard",
"searchAnalyzer": "lucene.standard",
"mappings": {
"dynamic": false,
"fields": {
"address": {
"type": "document",
"fields": {
"city": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.simple",
"ignoreAbove": 255
},
"state": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.english"
}
}
},
"company": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.whitespace",
"multi": {
"mySecondaryAnalyzer": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.french"
}
}
},
"employees": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.standard"
}
}
}
}

The following index definition example uses both static and dynamic mappings.

  • The default index analyzer is lucene.standard.

  • The default search analyzer is lucene.standard. You can change the search analyzer if you want the query term to be parsed differently than how it is stored in your Atlas Search index.

  • The index specifies static field mappings (dynamic: false), which means fields that aren't explicitly mentioned aren't indexed. So, the index definition includes:

    • The company field, which is of type string. It uses the lucene.whitespace analyzer by default for queries. It has a multi analyzer named mySecondaryAnalyzer which uses the lucene.french analyzer by default for queries. To learn more about multi analyzers, see Path Construction.

    • The employees field, which is an array of strings. It uses the lucene.standard analyzer by default for queries.

    • The address field, which is of type document. It has two embedded sub-fields, city and state. Instead of explicitly mentioning each nested field in the document, the index definition enables dynamic mapping for all the sub-fields in the document. It uses the lucene.standard analyzer by default for queries.

{
"analyzer": "lucene.standard",
"searchAnalyzer": "lucene.standard",
"mappings": {
"dynamic": false,
"fields": {
"company": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.whitespace",
"multi": {
"mySecondaryAnalyzer": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.french"
}
}
},
"employees": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "lucene.standard"
},
"address": {
"type": "document",
"dynamic": true,
"analyzer": "lucene.standard"
}
}
}
}
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