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Wildcard Indexes

Wildcard Index Restrictions

On this page

  • Incompatible Index Types or Properties
  • Unsupported Query and Aggregation Patterns
  • Sharding

Incompatible Index Types or Properties

Wildcard indexes do not support the following index types or properties:

  • Compound

  • TTL

  • text

  • 2d (Geospatial)

  • 2dsphere (Geospatial)

  • Hashed

  • Unique

Note

Wildcard Indexes are distinct from and incompatible with Wildcard Text Indexes. Wildcard indexes cannot support queries using the $text operator.

Unsupported Query and Aggregation Patterns

Field does not exist

Wildcard indexes are sparse and do not index empty fields. Wildcard indexes therefore cannot support querying for documents where a field does not exist.

For example, consider a collection inventory with a wildcard index on product_attributes. The wildcard index cannot support the following queries:

db.inventory.find( {"product_attributes" : { $exists : false } } )
db.inventory.aggregate([
  { $match : { "product_attributes" : { $exists : false } } }
])
Field is equal to a document or an array

Wildcard indexes generate entries for the contents of a document or array, and not the document/array itself. Wildcard indexes therefore cannot support exact document/array equality matches. Wildcard indexes can support querying where the field equals an empty document {}.

For example, consider a collection inventory with a wildcard index on product_attributes. The wildcard index cannot support the following queries:

db.inventory.find({ "product_attributes" : { "price" : 29.99 } } )
db.inventory.find({ "product_attributes.tags" : [ "waterproof", "fireproof" ] } )
db.inventory.aggregate([{
  $match : { "product_attributes" : { "price" : 29.99 } }
}])
db.inventory.aggregate([{
  $match : { "product_attributes.tags" : ["waterproof", "fireproof" ] } }
}])
Field is not equal to a document or array

Wildcard indexes generate entries for the contents of a document or array, and not the document/array itself. Wildcard indexes therefore cannot support exact document/array inequality matches.

For example, consider a collection inventory with a wildcard index on product_attributes. The wildcard index cannot support the following queries:

db.inventory.find( { $ne : [ "product_attributes", { "price" : 29.99 } ] } )
db.inventory.find( { $ne : [ "product_attributes.tags",  [ "waterproof", "fireproof" ] ] } )
db.inventory.aggregate([{
  $match : { $ne : [ "product_attributes", { "price" : 29.99 } ] }
}])
db.inventory.aggregate([{
  $match : { $ne : [ "product_attributes.tags", [ "waterproof", "fireproof" ] ] }
}])
Field is not equal to null

If a given field is an array in any document in the collection, wildcard indexes cannot support queries for documents where that field is not equal to null.

For example, consider a collection inventory with a wildcard index on product_attributes. The wildcard index cannot support the following queries if product_attributes.tags is an array in any document in the collection:

db.inventory.find( { $ne : [ "product_attributes.tags", null ] } )
db.inventory.aggregate([{
  $match : { $ne : [ "product_attributes.tags", null ] }
}])

Sharding

You cannot shard a collection using a wildcard index. Create a non-wildcard index on the field or fields you want to shard on. For more information on shard key selection, see Shard Keys.

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Wildcard Indexes