Persistent Indexes

FlexSearch provides a new Storage Adapter where indexes are delegated through persistent storages.

Supported:

• IndexedDB (Browser)
• Redis
• SQLite
• Postgres
• MongoDB
• Clickhouse

The .export() and .import() methods are still available for non-persistent In-Memory indexes.

All search capabilities are available on persistent indexes like:

• Context-Search
• Suggestions
• Cursor-based Queries (Limit/Offset)
• Scoring (supports a resolution of up to 32767 slots)
• Document-Search
• Partial Search
• Multi-Tag-Search
• Boost Fields
• Custom Encoder
• Resolver
• Tokenizer
• Document Store (incl. enrich results)
• Worker Threads to run in parallel
• Auto-Balanced Cache (top queries + last queries)

All persistent variants are optimized for larger sized indexes under heavy workload. Almost every task will be streamlined to run in batch/parallel, getting the most out of the selected database engine. Whereas the InMemory index can't share their data between different nodes when running in a cluster, every persistent storage can handle this by default.

Examples Node.js:

• nodejs-commonjs:
  • basic-persistent
  • document-persistent
• nodejs-esm:
  • basic-persistent
  • document-persistent

Examples Browser:

• browser-legacy:
  • basic-persistent
  • document-persistent
• browser-module:
  • basic-persistent
  • document-persistent

Browser (IndexedDB)

import { Index, IndexedDB } from "../dist/flexsearch.bundle.module.min.js";
// create an index
const index = new Index();
// create db instance with optional prefix
const db = new IndexedDB("my-store");
// mount and await before transfering data
await index.mount(db);

// update the index as usual
index.add(1, "content...");
index.update(2, "content...");
index.remove(3);

// changes are automatically committed by default
// when you need to wait for the task completion, then you
// can use the commit method explicitely:
await index.commit();

Alternatively mount a store by index creation:

const index = new Index({
    db: new IndexedDB("my-store")
});

// await for the db response before access the first time
await index.db;
// apply changes to the index
// ...

Query against a persistent storage just as usual:

const result = await index.search("gulliver");

Auto-Commit is enabled by default and will process changes asynchronously in batch. You can fully disable the auto-commit feature and perform them manually:

const index = new Index({
    db: new Storage("my-store"),
    commit: false
});
// update the index
index.add(1, "content...");
index.update(2, "content...");
index.remove(3);

// transfer all changes to the db
await index.commit();

You can call the commit method manually also when commit: true option was set.

Node.js

import { Index } from "flexsearch";
import Database from "flexsearch/db/postgres";
// create an index
const index = new Index();
// create db instance with optional prefix
const db = new Database("my-store");
// mount and await before transfering data
await index.mount(db);

// update the index as usual
index.add(1, "content...");
index.update(2, "content...");
index.remove(3);

// changes are automatically committed by default
// when you need to wait for the task completion, then you
// can use the commit method explicitely:
await index.commit();

Benchmark

The benchmark was measured in "terms per second".

Search 1: Single term query Search N: Multi term query (Context-Search)

The benchmark was executed against a single client.

Delete Store + Migration

Actually there exist no migration tool. You will probably need some kind of migration on future updates or when you need to re-create the index on the database.

[!CAUTION] Please use the methods index.destroy() and index.clear() carefully. This methods will delete contents (truncate, drop) from the database accordingly to the passed name on initialization.

Just clear all contents (truncate equivalent) from a store which connected to an index:

// always define a unique name when assigning a storage
const db = new Database("my-store", config);
await index.mount(db);
// truncate all contents
await index.clear();

Drop all tables (and its schema):

// always define a unique name when assigning a storage
const db = new Database("my-store", config);
await index.mount(db);
// drop all associated tables
await index.destroy();

A full migration cycle could be combined by:

// always define a unique name when assigning a storage
const db = new Database("my-store", config);
await index.mount(db);
// drop all associated tables
await index.destroy();
// when destroyed you'll need to mount again
// to run table creation
await index.mount(db);
// access index ...

Source: doc/persistent.md