Overview

A full-text index is a type of index specialized for efficient searching for string or text properties, especially in large text fields like descriptions, comments, or articles.

Full-text indexes work by breaking down the text into smaller segments called tokens. When a query is performed, the search engine matches specified keywords against these tokens instead of the original full text, allowing for faster retrieval of relevant results. This approach enables keyword matching and partial matches.

Showing Full-text Indexes

To retrieve node full-text indexes in the current graph:

SHOW NODE FULLTEXT

To retrieve edge full-text indexes in the current graph:

SHOW EDGE FULLTEXT

The information about full-text indexes is organized into the _nodeFulltext or _edgeFulltext table. Each table includes provides essential details about each full-text index:

Creating a Full-text Index

You can create a full-text index using the CREATE FULLTEXT statement. Note that each property can only have one full-text index. The full-text index creation runs as a job, you may run SHOW JOB afterward to verify the success of the creation.

System properties in Ultipa are inherently optimized for query performance and have built-in efficiencies. They do not support full-text indexing.

<create full-text index statement> ::=
  "CREATE FULLTEXT" <full-text index name> "ON" < "NODE" | "EDGE" > <schema name>
  "(" <property name> ")"

Details

• The <full-text index name> must be unique among nodes and among edges, but a node full-text index and an edge full-text index may share the same name. Naming conventions are:
  • 2 to 64 characters.
  • Begins with a letter.
  • Allowed characters: letters (A-Z, a-z), numbers (0-9) and underscores (_).

To create a full-text index named prodDesc for the property description of product nodes:

CREATE FULLTEXT proDesc on NODE product (description)

To create a full-text index named review for the property content of review edges:

CREATE FULLTEXT review on EDGE review (content)

Dropping a Full-text Index

You can drop a full-text index using the DROP NODE FULLTEXT or DROP EDGE FULLTEXT statement. Dropping a full-text index does not affect the actual property values stored in shards.

A property with a full-text index cannot be dropped until the full-text index is deleted.

To drop the node full-text index proDesc:

DROP NODE FULLTEXT proDesc

To drop the edge full-text index review:

DROP EDGE FULLTEXT review

Using Full-text Indexes

The feature to use a full-text index in filters is coming soon.