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2: Define Field Mappings

How to Index Fields in Objects and Documents

On this page

  • Review document Type Limitations
  • Define the Index for the document Type
  • Configure document Field Properties
  • Try an Example for the document Type

You can use the Atlas Search document type to index fields in objects or documents.

If you enable dynamic mappings, Atlas Search automatically indexes fields of type document. You can use the Visual Editor or the JSON Editor in the Atlas UI to index fields as the document type.

Review document Type Limitations

You can't use the Atlas Search document type to index fields in objects or documents that are inside an array. Instead, use the Atlas Search embeddedDocuments type to index fields in objects or documents that are elements of an array.

Define the Index for the document Type

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

  1. Click Refine Your Index to configure your index.

  2. In the Field Mappings section, click Add Field to open the Add Field Mapping window.

  3. Click Customized Configuration.

  4. Select the field to index from the Field Name dropdown.

    Note

    You can't index fields that contain the dollar ($) sign at the start of the field name.

  5. Click the Data Type dropdown and select Document.

  6. Toggle the Enable Dynamic Mapping setting to enable or disable dynamic indexing of all dynamically indexable fields in the document. To learn more, see Configure document Field Properties.

  7. Click Add.

  8. If you disabled dynamic mapping, click Add Child Field for the Document type field to define field mappings for the fields in the document.

The following is the JSON syntax for the document type. Replace the default index definition with the following. To learn more about the fields, see Field Properties.

1{
2  "mappings": {
3    "dynamic": true|false,
4    "fields": {
5      "<field-name>": {
6        "type": "document",
7        "dynamic": true|false,
8        "fields": {
9          "<field-name>": {
10            <field-mapping-definition>
11          }
12        }
13      }
14    }
15  }
16}

Configure document Field Properties

The Atlas Search document type takes the following parameters:

Option
Type
Necessity
Description
Default

type

string

Required

Human-readable label that identifies the field type. Value must be document.

dynamic

boolean

Optional

Flag that indicates whether Atlas Search recursively indexes all fields and embedded documents. If set to true, Atlas Search recursively indexes all fields and embedded documents in the document except fields of certain data types.

To index all fields in a document including fields that Atlas Search doesn't dynamically index, define the fields in the index definition.

If omitted or set to false, you must specify individual fields to index.

IMPORTANT: Atlas Search dynamically indexes all fields in a document using the default settings for the detected data type. Atlas Search also dynamically indexes all nested documents under the document, unless you explicitly override by setting dynamic to false.

false

fields

document

Optional

Document that maps field names to field definitions. To learn more, see an example. This is required if dynamic is omitted or set to false.

Try an Example for the document Type

The following index definition example uses the sample_mflix.movies collection. If you have the sample data already loaded on your cluster, you can use the Visual Editor or JSON Editor in the Atlas UI to configure the index. After you select your preferred configuration method, select the database and collection, and refine your index to add field mappings.

The index definition indexes the awards field as the document type. It also configures Atlas Search to automatically index all the dynamically indexable fields inside the awards object.

  1. In the Add Field Mapping window, select awards from the Field Name dropdown.

  2. Click the Data Type dropdown and select Document.

  3. Toggle the Enable Dynamic Mapping setting to enable dynamic indexing of all dynamically indexable fields in the document, if it isn't already enabled.

  4. Click Add.

Replace the default index definition with the following index definition.

1{
2  "mappings": {
3    "dynamic": false,
4    "fields": {
5      "awards": {
6        "type": "document",
7        "dynamic": true
8      }
9    }
10  }
11}

Tip

See also: Additional Index Definition Examples

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