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Using Aliases in Typesense Search Queries

TLDR Babin had a question about using aliases in Typesense search queries, specifically when passing collection names. Jason helped identify a misconfiguration and provided guidance, resolving the issue.

7mo

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Mar 13, 2023 (7 months ago)

Photo of md5-aece7b06eda2a85a5bcfb5fd39332e2c

Babin

07:53 PM

Hi Team, I have a question, how to use alias.

{
    "aliases": [
        {
            "collection_name": "items_1_031323",
            "name": "items_1_alias"
        },
        {
            "collection_name": "items_1",
            "name": "test"
        }
    ]
}

I have created 2nd alias on collection Items_1. Now in search query, when I pass collection name as test, it doesn't work. How do I use test alias name in search, so that I don't need to change the front end configuration. Appreciate any help

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Jason

07:54 PM

Do you already have a collection named items_1?

Babin

08:03 PM

Yes

08:03

Babin

08:03 PM

Collection 1: items_1 with documents count 499
Collection 2: items with documents count 8862
Collection 3: item-categories with documents count 660
Collection 4: brands with documents count 3908

08:03

Babin

08:03 PM

client.collections(collectionName).documents().search(searchParameters) if I pass test as collectionName it doesn't work

Jason

08:04 PM

Could you clone this code-snippet and reproduce the issue you’re seeing: https://gist.github.com/jasonbosco/7c3432713216c378472f13e72246f46b

08:04

Jason

08:04 PM

(You’ll find curl commands for aliases in the docs)

08:05

Jason

08:05 PM

And then share that snippet with me so I can try it out locally?

Babin

08:05 PM

Give me some time

08:05

Babin

08:05 PM

I will post here

08:06

Babin

08:06 PM

Do you want be to run these curls in my collection ?

08:06

Babin

08:06 PM

I don't have any local instance

Jason

08:09 PM

Yeah, feel free to use your Typesense Cloud cluster hostname

08:09

Jason

08:09 PM

(and leave out the API key when you share the code snippet here)

Babin

08:24 PM

{
    "created_at": 1678739026,
    "default_sorting_field": "num_employees",
    "enable_nested_fields": false,
    "fields": [
        {
            "facet": false,
            "index": true,
            "infix": false,
            "locale": "",
            "name": "company_name",
            "optional": false,
            "sort": false,
            "type": "string"
        },
        {
            "facet": false,
            "index": true,
            "infix": false,
            "locale": "",
            "name": "num_employees",
            "optional": false,
            "sort": true,
            "type": "int32"
        },
        {
            "facet": true,
            "index": true,
            "infix": false,
            "locale": "",
            "name": "country",
            "optional": false,
            "sort": false,
            "type": "string"
        }
    ],
    "name": "companies",
    "num_documents": 0,
    "symbols_to_index": [],
    "token_separators": []
}

08:24

Babin

08:24 PM

{"success":true}

08:24

Babin

08:24 PM

{"success":true}{"results":[{"code":404,"error":"Could not find a field named `name` in the schema."}]}

Jason

08:25 PM

That snippet was an example btw, could you edit it as needed to create the aliases and share the edited snippet with me?

Babin

08:44 PM

source .env
typeSenseApiKey=${TYPE_SENSE_API_MASTER_KEY}
typeSenseHost=${TYPE_SENSE_HOSTURL}


curl "${typeSenseHost}/collections" \
       -X POST \
       -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
       -H "X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY: ${typeSenseApiKey}" \
       -d '{
         "name": "companies",
         "fields": [
           {"name": "company_name", "type": "string" },
           {"name": "num_employees", "type": "int32" },
           {"name": "country", "type": "string", "facet": true }
         ],
         "default_sorting_field": "num_employees"
       }'

curl "${typeSenseHost}/collections/companies/documents/import?action=create" \
        -H "X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY: ${typeSenseApiKey}" \
        -H "Content-Type: text/plain" \
        -X POST \
        -d '{"id": "124","company_name": "Stark Industries","num_employees": 5215,"country": "USA"}
            {"id": "125","company_name": "Acme Corp","num_employees": 2133,"country": "CA"}'

curl "${TYPE_SENSE_HOSTURL}/aliases/companies_alias" -X PUT \
            -H "X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY: ${TYPE_SENSE_API_MASTER_KEY}" \
            -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
            -d "{\"collection_name\":\"companies\"}"


curl "${typeSenseHost}/multi_search?query_by=name" \
        -X POST \
        -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
        -H "X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY: ${typeSenseApiKey}" \
        -d '{
          "searches": [
            {
              "collection": "companies_alias",
              "q": "stark"
            }
          ]
        }'

08:44

Babin

08:44 PM

Collection 1: companies with documents count 2

08:45

Babin

08:45 PM

{"aliases":[{"collection_name":"items_1","name":"test"},{"collection_name":"companies","name":"companies_alias"}]}

Jason

08:46 PM

Great, could you also post the output of running that script?

Babin

08:48 PM

{"created_at":1678740196,"default_sorting_field":"num_employees","enable_nested_fields":false,"fields":[{"facet":false,"index":true,"infix":false,"locale":"","name":"company_name","optional":false,"sort":false,"type":"string"},{"facet":false,"index":true,"infix":false,"locale":"","name":"num_employees","optional":false,"sort":true,"type":"int32"},{"facet":true,"index":true,"infix":false,"locale":"","name":"country","optional":false,"sort":false,"type":"string"}],"name":"companies","num_documents":0,"symbols_to_index":[],"token_separators":[]}{"success":true}
{"success":true}{"collection_name":"companies","name":"companies_alias"}{"results":[{"code":404,"error":"Could not find a field named `name` in the schema."}]}

Jason

08:48 PM

Could you change the last curl command to:

curl "${typeSenseHost}/multi_search?query_by=company_name" \
        -X POST \
        -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
        -H "X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY: ${typeSenseApiKey}" \
        -d '{
          "searches": [
            {
              "collection": "companies_alias",
              "q": "stark",
            }
          ]
        }'

08:49

Jason

08:49 PM

Changed query_by=name to query_by=company_name (the gist I shared with you had a typo in it)

Babin

08:51 PM

{
    "results": [
        {
            "facet_counts": [],
            "found": 1,
            "hits": [
                {
                    "document": {
                        "company_name": "Stark Industries",
                        "country": "USA",
                        "id": "124",
                        "num_employees": 5215
                    },
                    "highlight": {
                        "company_name": {
                            "matched_tokens": [
                                "Stark"
                            ],
                            "snippet": "<mark>Stark</mark> Industries"
                        }
                    },
                    "highlights": [
                        {
                            "field": "company_name",
                            "matched_tokens": [
                                "Stark"
                            ],
                            "snippet": "<mark>Stark</mark> Industries"
                        }
                    ],
                    "text_match": 578730123365187705,
                    "text_match_info": {
                        "best_field_score": "1108091338752",
                        "best_field_weight": 15,
                        "fields_matched": 1,
                        "score": "578730123365187705",
                        "tokens_matched": 1
                    }
                }
            ],
            "out_of": 2,
            "page": 1,
            "request_params": {
                "collection_name": "companies",
                "per_page": 10,
                "q": "stark"
            },
            "search_cutoff": false,
            "search_time_ms": 0
        }
    ]
}

08:51

Babin

08:51 PM

I got result

Jason

08:52 PM

Yeah, so the alias feature is working as expected…

08:52

Jason

08:52 PM

Could you try seeing how this example is different from what you have?

Babin

08:52 PM

How to call it from JavaSCript

08:52

Babin

08:52 PM

Let me search from test alias

Jason

08:52 PM

You’ll find JS snippets next to the curl commands

08:53

Jason

08:53 PM

Wherever the docs say “collection name”, you can use an alias instead

Babin

08:54 PM

One sec

08:54

Babin

08:54 PM

In previous curl I searched from collection itself

Jason

08:55 PM

curl "${typeSenseHost}/multi_search?query_by=company_name" \
        -X POST \
        -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
        -H "X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY: ${typeSenseApiKey}" \
        -d '{
          "searches": [
            {
              "collection": "companies_alias",
              "q": "stark",
            }
          ]
        }'

companies_alias is the alias name right?

Babin

08:55 PM

I meant in my host

08:55

Babin

08:55 PM

let me curl in my collection first, then Js code

09:02

Babin

09:02 PM

It worked

09:02

Babin

09:02 PM

It was a wrong configuration

09:13

Babin

09:13 PM

Thank you so much for you help Jason

Jason

09:13 PM

Happy to!

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