• Indexes >
• Index Concepts

Index Concepts

These documents describe and provide examples of the types, configuration options, and behavior of indexes in MongoDB. For an overview of indexing, see Index Introduction. For operational instructions, see Indexing Tutorials. The Indexing Reference documents the commands and operations specific to index construction, maintenance, and querying in MongoDB, including index types and creation options.

Index Types

MongoDB provides different types of indexes for different purposes and different types of content.

Single Field Indexes

A single field index only includes data from a single field of the documents in a collection. MongoDB supports single field indexes on fields at the top level of a document and on fields in sub-documents.

Compound Indexes

A compound index includes more than one field of the documents in a collection.

Multikey Indexes

A multikey index is an index on an array field, adding an index key for each value in the array.

Geospatial Indexes and Queries

Geospatial indexes support location-based searches on data that is stored as either GeoJSON objects or legacy coordinate pairs.

Text Indexes

Text indexes support search of string content in documents.

Hashed Index

Hashed indexes maintain entries with hashes of the values of the indexed field and are primarily used with sharded clusters to support hashed shard keys.

Index Properties

The properties you can specify when building indexes.

TTL Indexes

The TTL index is used for TTL collections, which expire data after a period of time.

Unique Indexes

A unique index causes MongoDB to reject all documents that contain a duplicate value for the indexed field.

Partial Indexes

A partial index indexes only documents that meet specified filter criteria.

Sparse Indexes

A sparse index does not index documents that do not have the indexed field.

Index Creation

The options available when creating indexes.

Index Intersection

The use of index intersection to fulfill a query.

Multikey Index Bounds

The computation of bounds on a multikey index scan.

• Index Types
  • Single Field Indexes
  • Compound Indexes
  • Multikey Indexes
  • Geospatial Indexes and Queries
    • 2dsphere Indexes
    • 2d Indexes
    • geoHaystack Indexes
    • 2d Index Internals
  • Text Indexes
  • Hashed Index
• Index Properties
  • TTL Indexes
  • Unique Indexes
  • Partial Indexes
  • Sparse Indexes
• Index Creation
• Index Intersection
• Multikey Index Bounds

Additional Resources

• Quick Reference Cards

←   Index Introduction Index Types  →

Was this page helpful?

Yes No

Thank you for your feedback!

We're sorry! You can Report a Problem to help us improve this page.

© MongoDB, Inc 2008-2016. MongoDB, Mongo, and the leaf logo are registered trademarks of MongoDB, Inc.