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Working with Geo Indexes

Create geo-spatial index

creates a geo index

POST /_api/index

Query Parameters

  • collection (string, required): The collection name.

Request Body

  • type (string, required): must be equal to “geo”.

  • fields (array of strings, required): An array with one or two attribute paths.
    If it is an array with one attribute path location, then a geo-spatial index on all documents is created using location as path to the coordinates. The value of the attribute must be an array with at least two double values. The array must contain the latitude (first value) and the longitude (second value). All documents, which do not have the attribute path or with value that are not suitable, are ignored.
    If it is an array with two attribute paths latitude and longitude, then a geo-spatial index on all documents is created using latitude and longitude as paths the latitude and the longitude. The value of the attribute latitude and of the attribute longitude must a double. All documents, which do not have the attribute paths or which values are not suitable, are ignored.

  • geoJson (boolean, optional): If a geo-spatial index on a location is constructed and geoJson is true, then the order within the array is longitude followed by latitude. This corresponds to the format described in http://geojson.org/geojson-spec.html#positions

  • inBackground (boolean, optional): The optional attribute inBackground can be set to true to create the index in the background, which will not write-lock the underlying collection for as long as if the index is built in the foreground. The default value is false.

Creates a geo-spatial index in the collection collection-name, if it does not already exist. Expects an object containing the index details.

Geo indexes are always sparse, meaning that documents that do not contain the index attributes or have non-numeric values in the index attributes will not be indexed.

Responses

HTTP 200: If the index already exists, then a HTTP 200 is returned.

HTTP 201: If the index does not already exist and could be created, then a HTTP 201 is returned.

HTTP 404: If the collection-name is unknown, then a HTTP 404 is returned.

Examples

Creating a geo index with a location attribute

shell> curl -X POST --header 'accept: application/json' --data-binary @- --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/index?collection=products <<EOF
{ 
  "type" : "geo", 
  "fields" : [ 
    "b" 
  ] 
}
EOF

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
content-type: application/json
connection: Keep-Alive
content-length: 241
server: ArangoDB
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Creating a geo index with latitude and longitude attributes

shell> curl -X POST --header 'accept: application/json' --data-binary @- --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/index?collection=products <<EOF
{ 
  "type" : "geo", 
  "fields" : [ 
    "e", 
    "f" 
  ] 
}
EOF

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
content-type: application/json
connection: Keep-Alive
content-length: 245
server: ArangoDB
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body