Define/Unset Distinct Attribute At Search Time

[gmourier]

Following: meilisearch/meilisearch#2221

geoffatsource asked this question in Q&A

I want to be able to set an index to have a distinct attribute, but be able to ignore it on certain types of queries (for instance geo or looking up all items in a distinct set)... is there a way to fashion a specific query to ignore the distinct setting?

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Meilisearch could expose a disableDistinctAttribute boolean on /search APIs to solve it!

Feel free to upvote this feature proposal, tell us more about your use case, or suggest another solution! ✨

[Kerollmops]

It is technically possible if I remember correctly.
There is nothing required for an attribute to be used as a distinct attribute besides the fact that it must be faceted.

Meilisearch could expose a disableDistinctAttribute boolean on /search APIs to solve it!

Or we could have an attributesForDistinct in the settings and be able to define the one we want to use at search time (/search).

[gmourier]

Hey @geoffatsource 👋

I was thinking about this, and I have some questions about an idea.

1. The settings distinctAttribute could become distinctAttributes and host an array of attributes usable at search time.
2. At search time, it is possible to specify the distinct attribute to use among the defined distinctAttributes or no distinct attribute.

This would allow several things:

• Users would not have to change the settings multiple times when determining the distinctAttribute to use at search during their development phase. Thus speeding up the Meilisearch integration.
• Users will be able to use different distinctAttribute depending on the context of the search on the front end (They may want to have different implementations of the search around a web product). They are not tied to a single distinct attribute defined in the settings.
• They may find it interesting to propose a component allowing the user to choose among the list of distinctAttributes when interacting with the search components.

What do you think? Would you have an interest in seeing the capability implemented in this way?

[geoffatsource]

As long as it didn't harm performance significantly, I would totally use this :)

[gmourier]

Thanks, @geoffatsource!

[Rkallenkoot]

This sounds good! Also very clearly explained in the spec: https://specs.meilisearch.com/specifications/text/0032-distinct-attribute.html#_3-future-possibilities

[macraig]

Hey folks, we have some news to share!

v1.9 has been released and it includes setting distinct attributes at search time.

Happy searching ✨