How to Use Autocomplete with Atlas Search
This tutorial describes how to create an Atlas Search index that enables
autocomplete queries. In the following examples, the index enables
autocomplete operators to query the specified field values.
Both examples take you through the following steps:
Set up an Atlas Search index with autocomplete data type for the
sample_mflix.moviescollection.Run Atlas Search queries against the specified fields in the
sample_mflix.moviescollection for an inputted sequence of characters.
Before you begin, ensure that your Atlas cluster meets the requirements described in the Prerequisites.
Define an Index with Autocomplete
You can use the autocomplete data type to index text values for
autocompletion. You can configure an autocomplete field to satisfy
a variety of use cases. To learn more about the configuration options
available in the autocomplete data type, such as tokenization
strategy and diacritic folding, see
autocomplete. You can use the autocomplete operator to query only fields indexed using
autocomplete.
You can also use the autocomplete type to index:
Fields whose value is an array of strings. To learn more, see Index Array.
String fields inside an array of documents indexed as the embeddedDocuments type.
In this section, you will create an Atlas Search index that indexes the title and
plot fields for autocompletion using the edgeGram tokenization strategy.
Navigate to the Atlas Search page for your project.
If it is not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it is not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
Click your cluster's name.
Click the Search tab.
Click Create Index.
Select a Configuration Method and click Next.
For a guided experience, select Visual Editor.
To edit the raw index definition, select JSON Editor.
Enter the Index Name, and set the Database and Collection.
In the Index Name field, enter
default.Note
If you name your index
default, you don't need to specify anindexparameter when using the $search pipeline stage. Otherwise, you must specify the index name using theindexparameter.In the Database and Collection section, find the
sample_mflixdatabase, and select themoviescollection.
Specify an index definition with the autocomplete field type.
You can use the Visual Editor or the JSON Editor in the Atlas user interface to create the index.
Click Create Search Index.
Close the You're All Set! Modal Window.
A modal window appears to let you know your index is building. Click the Close button.
Wait for the index to finish building.
The index should take about one minute to build. While it is
building, the Status column reads Build in
Progress. When it is finished building, the
Status column reads Active.
Run an Autocomplete Query
➤ Use the Select your language drop-down menu to set the language of the example on this page.
The autocomplete operator performs a search
for a word or phrase that contains a sequence of characters from an
incomplete input string. You can use the autocomplete operator with
search-as-you-type applications to predict words with increasing
accuracy as characters are entered in your application's search
field. autocomplete returns results that contain predicted words
based on the tokenization strategy specified in the index definition
for autocompletion. The fields that you intend to query with the
autocomplete operator must be indexed with the
autocomplete data type in the collection's
index definition.
Note
Atlas Search might return inaccurate results for queries with more than three words in a single string.
Continue Learning
Follow along with this video tutorial walk-through that demonstrates how to use the Atlas Search autocomplete operator and JavaScript to build a frontend form element that suggests data to the user.
Duration: 30 minutes