How to Index Fields for Autocompletion

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Define the Index for the autocomplete Type

Configure autocomplete Field Properties
Try an Example for the autocomplete Type

You can use the Atlas Search autocomplete type to index text values in string fields for autocompletion. You can configure an autocomplete type to satisfy a variety of use cases. To learn more about the configuration options available for the autocomplete type, such as tokenization strategy and diacritic folding, see Configure autocomplete Field Properties. You can query fields indexed as autocomplete type only using the autocomplete operator.

You can also use the autocomplete type to index:

Fields whose value is an array of strings. To learn more, see How to Index the Elements of an Array.
String fields inside an array of documents indexed as the embeddedDocuments type.

Tip

If you have a large number of documents and a wide range of data against which you want to run Atlas Search queries using the autocomplete operator, building this index can take some time. Alternatively, you can create a separate index with only the autocomplete type to reduce the impact on other indexes and queries while the index builds.

To learn more, see Atlas Search Index Performance Considerations.

Atlas Search doesn't dynamically index fields of type autocomplete. You must use static mappings to index autocomplete fields. You can use the Visual Editor or the JSON Editor in the Atlas UI to index fields of type autocomplete.

Define the Index for the `autocomplete` Type

To define the index for the autocomplete type, choose your preferred configuration method in the Atlas UI and then select the database and collection.

Configure `autocomplete` Field Properties

The Atlas Search autocomplete type takes the following parameters:

Option

Type

Necessity

Description

Default

type

string

required

Human-readable label that identifies this field type. Value must be string.

analyzer

string

optional

Name of the analyzer to use with this autocomplete mapping. You can use any Atlas Search analyzer except the lucene.kuromoji language analyzer and the following custom analyzer tokenizers and token filters:

nGram Tokenizer
edgeGram Tokenizer
daitchMokotoffSoundex Token Filter
nGram Token Filter
edgeGram Token Filter
shingle Token Filter

This option isn't available in the Visual Editor.

lucene.standard

maxGrams

int

optional

Maximum number of characters per indexed sequence. The value limits the character length of indexed tokens. When you search for terms longer than the maxGrams value, Atlas Search truncates the tokens to the maxGrams length.

15

minGrams

int

optional

Minimum number of characters per indexed sequence. We recommend 4 for the minimum value. A value that is less than 4 could impact performance because the size of the index can become very large. We recommend the default value of 2 for edgeGram only.

2

tokenization

enum

optional

Tokenization strategy to use when indexing the field for autocompletion. Value can be one of the following:

edgeGram - create indexable tokens, referred to as grams, from variable-length character sequences starting at the left side of the words as delimited by the analyzer used with this autocomplete mapping.
rightEdgeGram - create indexable tokens, referred to as grams, from variable-length character sequences starting at the right side of the words as delimited by the analyzer used with this autocomplete mapping.
nGram - create indexable tokens, referred to as grams, by sliding a variable-length character window over a word. Atlas Search creates more tokens for nGram than edgeGram or rightEdgeGram. Therefore, nGram takes more space and time to index the field. nGram is better suited for querying languages with long, compound words or languages that don't use spaces.

edgeGram, rightEdgeGram, and nGram are applied at the letter-level. For example, consider the following sentence:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

When tokenized with a minGrams value of 2 and a maxGrams value of 5, Atlas Search indexes the following sequence of characters based on the tokenization value you choose:

Note

Indexing a field for autocomplete with an edgeGram, rightEdgeGram, or nGram tokenization strategy is more computationally expensive than indexing a string field. The index takes more space than an index with regular string fields.

edgeGram

foldDiacritics

boolean

optional

Flag that indicates whether to include or remove diacritics from the indexed text. Value can be one of the following:

true - ignore diacritic marks in the index and query text. Returns results with and without diacritic marks. For example, a search for cafè returns results with the characters cafè and cafe.
false - include diacritic marks in the index and query text. Returns only results that match the strings with or without diacritics in the query. For example, a search for cafè returns results only with the characters cafè. A search for cafe returns results only with the characters cafe.

true

How to Index Fields for Autocompletion

Tip

Define the Index for the `autocomplete` Type

Configure `autocomplete` Field Properties

Note

Try an Example for the `autocomplete` Type

Tip

See also: Additional Index Definition Examples

Tip

Define the Index for the autocomplete Type

Configure autocomplete Field Properties

Note

Try an Example for the autocomplete Type

Tip

See also: Additional Index Definition Examples

Define the Index for the `autocomplete` Type

Configure `autocomplete` Field Properties

Try an Example for the `autocomplete` Type