19.4.4.6 Create and Drop Indexes

Indexes are used to find documents with specific field values quickly. Without an index, MySQL must begin with the first document and then read through the entire collection to find the relevant fields. The larger the collection, the more this costs. If a collection is large and queries on a specific field are common, then consider creating an index on a specific field inside a document.

For example, the following query will perform better with an index:

mysql-js> db.countryinfo.find("demographics.Population < 100")
...[output removed]
8 documents in set (0.00 sec)

The createIndex() method creates an index that you can define as nonunique or unique. Use the field() method to chain the fields that should be indexed. The execute() method is required to create or drop an index.

In MySQL, the _id field is equivalent to a primary key by default.

Add a Nonunique Index

To create a nonunique index, pass to the createIndex() method an index name. Duplicate index names are prohibited.

In the following example, the first parameter of the field() method specifies the Population field inside the demographics object and the next parameter indicates that the field should be indexed as an Integer numeric value. The last parameter indicates whether the field should require the NOT NULL constraint. If the value is false, the field can contain NULL values.

mysql-js> db.countryinfo.createIndex("pop").
field("demographics.Population", "INTEGER", false).execute()
Query OK (0.04 sec)

Add a Unique Index

To create a unique index, pass to the createIndex() method an index name and the mysqlx.IndexType.UNIQUE type. Country "Name" is another common field in the countryinfo collection to index. In the following example, "Text(40)" represents the number of characters to index and true indicates that the field cannot contain any NULL values.

mysql-js> db.countryinfo.createIndex("name", mysqlx.IndexType.UNIQUE).
field("Name", "TEXT(40)", true).execute()
Query OK (0.04 sec)

Drop an Index

To drop an index, pass to the dropIndex() method the name of the index to drop. For example, you can drop the “pop” index as follows:

mysql-js> db.countryinfo.dropIndex("pop").execute()
Query OK (0.58 sec)

Related Information

• See Collection Index Management Functions for the full syntax definition.