Renaming Indexes?

[Juma]

Hi,

Is there a way to rename an index?

Here is what I am trying to do in short with a document collection of 2-3 million.

"Index1" has column1 and column2 in the map. There is a change request to add another column to the index but if I change map, its going to rebuild the entire index (Am I even right on this one?).

What I would like to do it create a new index "Index2" with the appropriate columns and when its done, rename it back to "Index1"

Why would I even want to to this?
I don't want any existing client application to have to change their code base to start querying on the new column.

Another possible use case is If I decide to make one of my fields Analyzed or change an Analyzer on an field.I would still want existing clients to be able to use the old index.

Thanks,
Juma

[Paul Hinett]

I asked the same thing last week, Oren said it can't be done i'm afraid.

I hope it could become possible in the future though, as i have
situations like yours with a large data set too.

On 15 August 2012 01:40:11, Juma wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is there a way to rename an index?
>
> Here is what I am trying to do in short with a document collection of
> 2-3 million.
>
> "Index1" has column1 and column2 in the map. There is a change request
> to add another column to the index but if I change map, its going to
> rebuild the entire index (Am I even right on this one?).
>
> What I would like to do it create a new index "Index2" with the
> appropriate columns and when its done, rename it back to "Index1"
>

> *Why would I even want to to this?*

[Juma]

Just to clarify the Client is an UI application where I am exposing the fields to query based on the metadata for the UI. Basically, I would change my metadata to start exposing the field for search without recompiling the code. This would work because, I am using the Advanced Lucene query to dynamically build Lucene search/query strings.

[Kijana Woodard]

And users are able to add new fields which need to be indexed?

[Juma]

Nope, the users wouldn't add new fields to the index.

It would be a power user or a developer changing the index definition directly using Raven Studio (after testing it). They would also change the meta data definition that allows searching by the new field.

Then the next time the end user uses the Search UI, the new field will be available for searching (fully indexed).

Thanks,
Juma

[Oren Eini (Ayende Rahien)]

Juma,

We have no facility for renaming indexes.

[Juma]

Thanks Oren.

Just a quick clarification question (probably newbie):

Since the client code has to explicitly use the index name, I would think as long as there is no structural change in the index, this would be a non-issue right? Is there a underlying technical challenge involved?

Thanks,
Juma

[Oren Eini (Ayende Rahien)]

Juma,

Indexes are fairly involved internally.

Renaming them isn't as simple as just changing the name, it would means moving directories (while indexing is still running), updating lot of internal values, etc.

[Juma]

I figured as much. Just wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth. :-)

Thanks,
Juma