Indexing your Models

Basic Indexing

Everything to set up the indexes for your models goes in the define_index method, within your model. Don’t forget to place this block below your associations and any accepts_nested_attributes_for calls, otherwise any references to them for fields and attributes will not work.

  
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  # ...

  define_index do
    indexes subject, :sortable => true  
 indexes content  
 indexes author(:name), :as =&gt; :author, :sortable =&gt; true

has author\_id, created\_at, updated\_at  
 end

\# …  
end

Fields

The indexes method adds one (or many) fields, by referencing the model’s column names. You cannot reference model methods - Sphinx talks directly to your database, and Ruby doesn’t get loaded at this point.

  
indexes content

Keep in mind that if you’re referencing a column that shares its name with a core Ruby method (such as id, name or type), then you’ll need to specify it using a symbol.

  
indexes :name

You don’t need to keep the same names as the database, though. Use the :as option to signify an alias.

  
indexes content, :as =&gt; :post

You can also flag fields as being sortable.

  
indexes subject, :sortable =&gt; true

Use the :facet option to signify a facet.

  
indexes authors.name, :as =&gt; :author, :facet =&gt; true

If there are associations in your model, you can drill down through them to access other columns. Explicit aliases are required when doing this.

  
indexes author(:name), :as =&gt; :author  
indexes author.location, :as =&gt; :author\_location

There may be times when a normal column value isn’t exactly what you’re after, so you can also define your indexes as raw SQL:

notextile..

  
indexes “LOWER (first\_name)”, :as =&gt; :first\_name, :sortable =&gt;
true

Again, in this situation, an explicit alias is required.

Attributes

The has method adds one (or many) attributes, and just like the indexes method, it requires references to the model’s column names.

  
has author\_id

The syntax is very similar to setting up fields. You can set aliases, and drill down into associations. You don’t ever need to label an attribute as :sortable though - in Sphinx, all attributes can be used for sorting.

Also, just like fields, if you’re referring to a reserved method of Ruby (such as id, name or type), you need to use a symbol (which, when dealing with associations, is within a method call).

  
has :id, :as =&gt; :article\_id  
has tags(:id), :as =&gt; :tag\_ids

Conditions and Groupings

Because the index is translated to SQL, you may want to add some custom conditions or groupings manually - and for that, you’ll want the where and group_by methods:

  
define\_index do  
 \# …

where “status = ‘active’”

group\_by “user\_id”  
end

Sanitizing SQL

As previously mentioned, your index definition results in SQL from the indexes, the attributes, conditions and groupings, etc. With this in mind, it may be useful to simplify your index.

One way would be to use something like ActiveRecord::Base.sanitize_sql to generate the required SQL for you. For example:

  
define\_index do  
 \# …

where sanitize\_sql(\[“published”, true\])  
end

This will produce the expected WHERE published = 1 for MySQL.

Multiple Indices

If you want more than one index defined for a given model, just insert more define_index calls - but make sure you give every index a name, and have the same attributes defined in all indices.

  
define\_index ‘article\_foo’ do  
 \# index definition  
end

define\_index ‘article\_bar’ do  
 \# index definition  
end

Processing your Index

Once you’ve got your index set up just how you like it, you can run the rake task to get Sphinx to process the data.

  
rake thinking\_sphinx:index

As each model is processed, you will see a message much like the one below. It is just a warning, not an error. Everything will work fine.

  
distributed index ‘article’ can not be directly indexed; skipping.

However, if you have made structural changes to your index (which is anything except adding new data into the database tables), you’ll need to stop Sphinx, re-index, and then re-start Sphinx - which can be done through a single rake call.

  
rake thinking\_sphinx:rebuild