Book Image

Getting Started with RethinkDB

By : Gianluca Tiepolo
Book Image

Getting Started with RethinkDB

By: Gianluca Tiepolo

Overview of this book

RethinkDB is a high-performance document-oriented database with a unique set of features. This increasingly popular NoSQL database is used to develop real-time web applications and, together with Node.js, it can be used to easily deploy them to the cloud with very little difficulty. Getting Started with RethinkDB is designed to get you working with RethinkDB as quickly as possible. Starting with the installation and configuration process, you will learn how to start importing data into the database and run simple queries using the intuitive ReQL query language. After successfully running a few simple queries, you will be introduced to other topics such as clustering and sharding. You will get to know how to set up a cluster of RethinkDB nodes and spread database load across multiple machines. We will then move on to advanced queries and optimization techniques. You will discover how to work with RethinkDB from a Node.js environment and find out all about deployment techniques. Finally, we’ll finish by working on a fully-fledged example that uses the Node.js framework and advanced features such as Changefeeds to develop a real-time web application.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Getting Started with RethinkDB
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Creating and using an index


As you have learned, the previous query requires a table scan; that is, RethinkDB had to look through the name field in every document. Indexes are a great way to fix queries such as this because they organize data by a given field to let RethinkDB find it quickly.

Our test query uses the name field, so we will now create a simple index on that field.

The quickest way to create an index in RethinkDB is using the web interface.

First, select the people table from the Tables tab, and then click on the Create a new secondary index link. Enter the name of the field on which you wish to create the index. In our example, this is the name field:

When you click on Create, RethinkDB will begin creating the desired index. Depending on your system and how large your dataset is, creating an index may take a few seconds:

When the index is ready to use, you will see a screen similar to this one:

Congratulations! You've just created your very first index.

Now, it's time to use it in...