Node.js Basics — MongoDB Text and Unique Indexes

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Node.js is a popular runtime platform to create programs that run on it.

It lets us run JavaScript outside the browser.

In this article, we’ll look at how to start using Node.js to create programs.

Text Indexes

Text indexes let us do text searches on queries that have string content.

It can include any field whose value is a string or an array of strings.

For example, we can create the index and use it by wriing”

const { MongoClient } = require('mongodb');
const connection = "mongodb://localhost:27017";
const client = new MongoClient(connection);

async function run() {
  try {
    await client.connect();
    const db = client.db("test");
    const testCollection = await db.collection('test');
    await testCollection.dropIndexes();
    const indexResult = await testCollection.createIndex({ name: "text" }, { default_language: "english" });
    console.log(indexResult)
    await testCollection.deleteMany({})
    const result = await testCollection.insertMany([
      { "_id": 1, "name": "apples", "qty": 5, "rating": 3 },
      { "_id": 2, "name": "bananas", "qty": 7, "rating": 1 },
      { "_id": 3, "name": "oranges", "qty": 6, "rating": 2 },
      { "_id": 4, "name": "avocados", "qty": 3, "rating": 5 },
    ]);
    console.log(result)
    const query = { $text: { $search: "apple" } };
    const projection = { name: 1 };
    const cursor = testCollection
      .find(query)
      .project(projection);
    cursor.forEach(console.dir);
  } finally {
    await client.close();
  }
}
run().catch(console.dir);

We create the index by writing:

const indexResult = await testCollection.createIndex({ name: "text" }, { default_language: "english" });

The createIndex method adds the index to the name field.

The 2nd argument has the options for creating the index.

The default_language sets the index language.

Unique Indexes

We can add a unique index that index fields that don’t store duplicate values.

The _id field has a unique index added to it when the collection is created.

For example, we can write:

const { MongoClient } = require('mongodb');
const connection = "mongodb://localhost:27017";
const client = new MongoClient(connection);

async function run() {
  try {
    await client.connect();
    const db = client.db("test");
    const testCollection = await db.collection('test');
    await testCollection.dropIndexes();
    const indexResult = await testCollection.createIndex({ name: "text" }, { unique: true });
    console.log(indexResult)
    await testCollection.deleteMany({})
    const result = await testCollection.insertMany([
      { "_id": 1, "name": "apples", "qty": 5, "rating": 3 },
      { "_id": 2, "name": "bananas", "qty": 7, "rating": 1 },
      { "_id": 3, "name": "oranges", "qty": 6, "rating": 2 },
      { "_id": 4, "name": "avocados", "qty": 3, "rating": 5 },
    ]);
    console.log(result)
    const query = {};
    const projection { name: 1 };
    const cursor = testCollection
      .find(query)
      .project(projection);
    cursor.forEach(console.dir);
  } finally {
    await client.close();
  }
}
run().catch(console.dir);

to call createIndex with the 2nd argument being an object with the unique property set to true .

If there’re any duplicate values in the field in the collection, then we get the ‘duplicate key error index’ error when we try to create the index.

Conclusion

We can add indexes for text searches and indexing unique values for MongoDB fields.