Full-text search with Generated Columns - Drizzle Orm

import Section from "@mdx/Section.astro"; import Prerequisites from "@mdx/Prerequisites.astro"; import CodeTabs from '@mdx/CodeTabs.astro'; import CodeTab from '@mdx/CodeTab.astro';

<Prerequisites> - Get started with [PostgreSQL](/docs/get-started-postgresql) - [Select statement](/docs/select) - [Indexes](/docs/indexes-constraints#indexes) - [sql operator](/docs/sql) - [Full-text search](/learn/guides/postgresql-full-text-search) - [Generated columns](/docs/generated-columns) </Prerequisites>

This guide demonstrates how to implement full-text search in PostgreSQL with Drizzle and generated columns. A generated column is a special column that is always computed from other columns. It is useful because you don't have to compute the value of the column every time you query the table:

import { SQL, sql } from 'drizzle-orm';
import { index, pgTable, serial, text, customType } from 'drizzle-orm/pg-core';

export const tsvector = customType<{
data: string;
}>({
dataType() {
  return `tsvector`;
},
});

export const posts = pgTable(
'posts',
{
  id: serial('id').primaryKey(),
  title: text('title').notNull(),
  body: text('body').notNull(),
  bodySearch: tsvector('body_search')
    .notNull()
    .generatedAlwaysAs((): SQL => sql`to_tsvector('english', ${posts.body})`),
},
(t) => [
  index('idx_body_search').using('gin', t.bodySearch),
]
);

</CodeTab> ```sql CREATE TABLE "posts" ( "id" serial PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL, "title" text NOT NULL, "body" text NOT NULL, "body_search" "tsvector" GENERATED ALWAYS AS (to_tsvector('english', "posts"."body")) STORED NOT NULL ); --> statement-breakpoint CREATE INDEX "idx_body_search" ON "posts" USING gin ("body_search"); ``` </CodeTabs>

When you insert a row into a table, the value of a generated column is computed from an expression that you provide when you create the column:

<Section> ```ts import { posts } from './schema';

const db = drizzle(...);

const body = "Golden leaves cover the quiet streets as a crisp breeze fills the air, bringing the scent of rain and the promise of change"

await db.insert(posts).values({ body, title: "The Beauty of Autumn", } ).returning();


```json
[
  {
    id: 1,
    title: 'The Beauty of Autumn',
    body: 'Golden leaves cover the quiet streets as a crisp breeze fills the air, bringing the scent of rain and the promise of change',
    bodySearch: "'air':13 'breez':10 'bring':14 'chang':23 'cover':3 'crisp':9 'fill':11 'golden':1 'leav':2 'promis':21 'quiet':5 'rain':18 'scent':16 'street':6"
  }
]

</Section>

This is how you can implement full-text search with generated columns in PostgreSQL with Drizzle ORM. The @@ operator is used for direct matches:

<Section> ```ts copy {6} const searchParam = "bring";

await db .select() .from(posts) .where(sql${posts.bodySearch} @@ to_tsquery('english', ${searchParam}));


```sql
select * from posts where body_search @@ to_tsquery('english', 'bring');

</Section>

This is more advanced schema with a generated column. The search column is generated from the title and body columns and setweight() function is used to assign different weights to the columns for full-text search. This is typically used to mark entries coming from different parts of a document, such as title versus body.

import { SQL, sql } from 'drizzle-orm';
import { index, pgTable, serial, text, customType } from 'drizzle-orm/pg-core';

export const tsvector = customType<{
data: string;
}>({
dataType() {
  return `tsvector`;
},
});

export const posts = pgTable(
'posts',
{
 id: serial('id').primaryKey(),
 title: text('title').notNull(),
 body: text('body').notNull(),
 search: tsvector('search')
   .notNull()
   .generatedAlwaysAs(
      (): SQL =>
       sql`setweight(to_tsvector('english', ${posts.title}), 'A')
        ||
        setweight(to_tsvector('english', ${posts.body}), 'B')`,
   ),
},
(t) => [
  index('idx_search').using('gin', t.search),
],
);

</CodeTab> ```sql CREATE TABLE "posts" ( "id" serial PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL, "title" text NOT NULL, "body" text NOT NULL, "search" "tsvector" GENERATED ALWAYS AS (setweight(to_tsvector('english', "posts"."title"), 'A') || setweight(to_tsvector('english', "posts"."body"), 'B')) STORED NOT NULL ); --> statement-breakpoint CREATE INDEX "idx_search" ON "posts" USING gin ("search"); ``` </CodeTabs>

This is how you can query the table with full-text search:

<Section> ```ts copy {6} const search = 'travel';

await db .select() .from(posts) .where(sql${posts.search} @@ to_tsquery('english', ${search}));


```sql
select * from posts where search @@ to_tsquery('english', 'travel');

</Section>