CREATE INDEX

reference

The CREATE INDEX statement allows you to create a secondary index. Secondary indexes contain a filtered or a full set of keys in a given keyspace. Secondary indexes are optional but increase query efficiency on a keyspace.

In Couchbase Server 7.0 and later, CREATE INDEX allows you to make multiple concurrent index creation requests. The command starts a task to create the index definition in the background. If there is an index creation task already running, the Index Service queues the incoming index creation request. CREATE INDEX returns as soon as the index creation phase is complete.

By default, when the index creation phase is complete, the Index Service triggers the index build phase. If you lose connectivity, the index build operation continues in the background. You can also defer the index build phase using the defer_build clause. In deferred build mode, CREATE INDEX creates the index definition, but does not trigger the index build phase. You can then build the index using the BUILD INDEX command.

Index metadata provides a state field. The index state may be scheduled for creation, deferred, building, pending, online, offline, or abridged. This state field and other index metadata can be queried using system:indexes. You can also monitor the index state using the Couchbase Web Console.

If you kick off multiple index creation operations concurrently, you may sometimes see transient errors similar to the following. If this error occurs, the Index Service tries to run the failed operation again in the background until it succeeds, up to a maximum of 1000 retries.

[
  {
    "code": 5000,
    "msg": "GSI CreateIndex() - cause: Encountered transient error.  Index creation will be retried in background.  Error: Index ... will retry building in the background for reason: Build Already In Progress. Keyspace ...",
    "query": "..."
  }
]

If the Index Service still cannot create the index after the maximum number of retries, the index state is marked as offline. You must drop the failed index using the DROP INDEX command.

You can create multiple identical secondary indexes on a keyspace and place them on separate nodes for better index availability. In Couchbase Server Enterprise Edition, the recommended way to do this is using the num_replicas option. In Couchbase Server Community Edition, you need to create multiple identical indexes and place them using the nodes option. Refer to WITH Clause below for more details.

Prerequisites

RBAC Privileges

User executing the CREATE INDEX statement must have the Query Manage Index privilege granted on the keyspace. For more details about user roles, see Authorization.

Syntax

create-index ::= CREATE INDEX index-name ON keyspace-ref '(' index-key [ index-order ] [ ','
                 index-key [ index-order ] ]* ')' [ where-clause ] [ index-using ] [ index-with ]

'CREATE' 'INDEX' index-name 'ON' keyspace-ref '(' index-key index-order? ( ',' index-key index-order? )* ')' where-clause? index-using? index-with?

index-name: [Required] A unique name that identifies the index.

Valid GSI index names can contain any of the following characters: A-Z a-z 0-9 # _, and must start with a letter, [A-Z a-z]. The minimum length of an index name is 1 character and there is no maximum length set for an index name. When querying, if the index name contains a # or _ character, you must enclose the index name within backticks.

We recommend that you do not create (or drop) secondary indexes when any node with a secondary index role is down, as this may result in duplicate index names.

Keyspace Reference

keyspace-ref ::= keyspace-path | keyspace-partial

Specifies the keyspace for which the index needs to be created.

If there is a hyphen (-) inside any part of the keyspace reference, you must wrap that part of the keyspace reference in backticks (` `). Refer to the examples below.

Keyspace Path

keyspace-path ::= [ namespace ':' ] bucket [ '.' scope '.' collection ]

( namespace ':' )? bucket ( '.' scope '.' collection )?

If the keyspace is a named collection, or the default collection in the default scope within a bucket, the keyspace reference may be a keyspace path. In this case, the query context should not be set.

namespace: (Optional) An identifier that refers to the namespace of the keyspace. Currently, only the default namespace is available. If the namespace name is omitted, the default namespace in the current session is used.
bucket: (Required) An identifier that refers to the bucket name of the keyspace.
scope: (Optional) An identifier that refers to the scope name of the keyspace. If omitted, the bucket’s default scope is used.
collection: (Optional) An identifier that refers to the collection name of the keyspace. If omitted, the default collection in the bucket’s default scope is used.

For example, default:`travel-sample` indicates the default collection in the default scope in the travel-sample bucket in the default namespace.

Similarly, default:`travel-sample`.inventory.airline indicates the airline collection in the inventory scope in the travel-sample bucket in the default namespace.

Keyspace Partial

keyspace-partial ::= collection

Alternatively, if the keyspace is a named collection, the keyspace reference may be just the collection name with no path. In this case, you must set the query context to indicate the required namespace, bucket, and scope.

collection: (Required) An identifier that refers to the collection name of the keyspace.

For example, airline indicates the airline collection, assuming the query context is set.

Index Key

index-key ::= expr | array-expr

Refers to an attribute name or a scalar function or an ARRAY expression on the attribute. This constitutes an index-key for the index.

expr: A N1QL expression over any fields in the document. This cannot use constant expressions, aggregate functions, or sub-queries.
array-expr: An array expression. For details about array expressions, see Array Indexing.

Index Order

index-order ::= ASC | DESC

Specifies the sort order of the index key.

ASC: The index key is sorted in ascending order.
DESC: The index key is sorted in descending order.

This clause is optional; if omitted, the default is ASC.

WHERE Clause

where-clause ::= WHERE cond

cond: Specifies WHERE clause predicates to qualify the subset of documents to include in the index.

USING Clause

index-using ::= USING GSI

In Couchbase Server 6.5 and later, the index type for a secondary index must be Global Secondary Index (GSI). The USING GSI keywords are optional and may be omitted.

WITH Clause

index-with ::= WITH expr

Use the WITH clause to specify additional options.

expr

An object with the following properties:

nodes

[Optional] An array of strings, each of which represents a node name.

COMMUNITY EDITION

In Couchbase Server Community Edition, a single global secondary index can be placed on a single node that runs the indexing service. The nodes property allows you to specify the node that the index is placed on. If nodes is not specified, one of the nodes running the indexing service is randomly picked for the index.

ENTERPRISE EDITION

In Couchbase Server Enterprise Edition, you can specify multiple nodes to distribute replicas of an index across nodes running the indexing service, for example:

CREATE INDEX country_idx ON `travel-sample`.inventory.airport(country, city)
WITH {"nodes": ["node1:8091", "node2:8091", "node3:8091"]};

If specifying both nodes and num_replica, the number of nodes in the array must be one greater than the specified number of replicas otherwise the index creation will fail.

If nodes is not specified, then the system chooses nodes on which to place the new index and any replicas, in order to achieve the best resource utilization across nodes running the indexing service. This is done by taking into account the current resource usage statistics of index nodes.

A node name passed to the nodes property must include the cluster administration port, by default 8091. For example WITH {"nodes": ["192.0.2.0:8091"]} instead of WITH {"nodes": ["192.0.2.0"]}.

defer_build

[Optional] Boolean.

true: When set to true, the CREATE INDEX operation queues the task for building the index but immediately pauses the building of the index of type GSI. Index building requires an expensive scan operation. Deferring building of the index with multiple indexes can optimize the expensive scan operation. Admins can defer building multiple indexes and, using the BUILD INDEX statement, multiple indexes to be built efficiently with one efficient scan of bucket data.
false: When set to false, the CREATE INDEX operation queues the task for building the index and immediately kicks off the building of the index of type GSI.

num_replica

ENTERPRISE EDITION

This property is only available in Couchbase Server Enterprise Edition.

[Optional] Integer that specifies the number of replicas of the index to create.

The indexer will automatically distribute these replicas amongst index nodes in the cluster for load-balancing and high availability purposes. The indexer will attempt to distribute the replicas based on the server groups in use in the cluster where possible.

If the value of this property is not less than the number of index nodes in the cluster, then the index creation will fail.

Usage

Array Indexing

Array indexing enables you to create global indexes on array elements and optimize the execution of queries involving array elements. For details, refer to Array Indexing.

Index Partitioning

Index partitioning helps increase the query performance by dividing and spreading a large index of documents across multiple nodes, horizontally scaling out an index as needed. For details, refer to Index Partitioning.

Using the `meta().id` Function

For details, refer to Indexing Meta Info.

Using Indexes for Aggregates

If there is an index on the expression of an aggregate, that index may be used to satisfy the query. For example, given the index alt_idx created using the following statement:

CREATE INDEX alt_idx ON `travel-sample`.inventory.airport(geo.alt);

The query engine will use the index alt_idx for the following query:

SELECT MIN(geo.alt), MAX(geo.alt) FROM `travel-sample`.inventory.airport;

For details, refer to Operator Pushdowns.

Index Replicas

In the Indexes screen in the Couchbase Web Console, index replicas are marked with their replica ID.

The Indexes screen showing an index and index replica with replica ID

If you select view by server node from the drop-down menu, you can see the server node where each index and index replica is placed.

You can also query the system:indexes catalog to find the ID of an index replica and see which node it is placed on.

By default, index replicas are used to serve index scans. The system automatically load-balances an index scan across the index and all its replicas. Adding index replicas enables you to scale scan throughput, in addition to providing high availability.

Examples

Default Collection

The following example creates an index on the default collection in the default scope within the travel-sample bucket. First make sure the query context is not set.

Query Workbench
CBQ Shell

Use the query context drop-down menu to select query context.

The query context drop-down menu, with no bucket or scope selected

\UNSET -query_context;

Example 1. Create an index

Create a secondary index that contains airports with an alt value greater than 1000 on the node 127.0.0.1.

CREATE INDEX idx_default_over1000
  ON `travel-sample`(geo.alt)
  WHERE geo.alt > 1000
  USING GSI
  WITH {"nodes": ["127.0.0.1:8091"]};

Query Context

The following example is similar to Example 1, but creates an index on the airport collection. First set the query context to `travel-sample`.inventory.

Query Workbench
CBQ Shell

Use the query context drop-down menu to select travel-sample.inventory.

The query context drop-down menu, with 'travel-sample.inventory' selected

\SET -query_context travel-sample.inventory;

Example 2. Create an index on a collection with query context