Send data to Algolia

Send data to Algolia with the Algolia SearchBundle.

Before you begin

After configuring what entities to index, you can send data to Algolia.

This guide uses this Post entity and the following configuration:

YAML

algolia_search:
  indices:
    - name: posts
      class: App\Entity\Post
    - name: comments
      class: App\Entity\Comment

Manual indexing

With the CLI

Once your indices configuration is ready, you can use the built-in console command to import all existing data:

Command line

# Import all indices
php bin/console search:import

# Choose what indices to reindex by passing the index name
php bin/console search:import --indices=posts,comments

Before reindexing everything, you may want to clear the index.

Atomic reindexing

For a zero-downtime rebuild, pass the --atomic flag. The bundle creates a temporary index, copies your existing settings, synonyms, and rules to it, indexes all entities into it, and then atomically moves it over the source index:

Command line

php bin/console search:import --atomic --indices=posts

Use this flag when the application is serving live traffic and you need the existing records and settings to remain available until the new index is fully populated.

Programmatically

To index any entities in your code, use the SearchService. Pass it the ObjectManager associated with your records and the records to index. Records can be a single entity, an array of entities or even an array of different entities as long as they’re using the same ObjectManager.

PHP

$searchService->index($entityManager, $post);

$searchService->index($entityManager, $posts);

$searchService->index($entityManager, $postsAndComments);

You can pass a third optional argument to the index method, the $requestOptions array or object. With PHP client v4, HTTP-level options (headers, query parameters, body extras, timeouts) must be nested under their own key:

PHP

$searchService->index($entityManager, $anyObject, [
    'headers' => [
        'X-Forwarded-For' => '0.0.0.0',
    ],
]);

The index method, along with all the methods used to manage your data and indices in the SearchService, is waitable. By chaining the function wait() to your operation, you’re saying explicitly that you want to wait for the engine to finish processing your task before moving on.

PHP

$searchService->index($entityManager, $anyObject)->wait();

Manual deletion

With the CLI

To completely clear your indices (before reindexing for example), use the search:clear command.

Command line

# Clear all indices
php bin/console search:clear

# Choose what indices to clear by passing the index name
php bin/console search:clear --indices=posts,comments

Programmatically

The same way you index data, you can use the remove method to delete entries from the Algolia .

PHP

$searchService->remove($entityManager, $post);

$searchService->remove($entityManager, $posts);

$searchService->remove($entityManager, $postsAndComments);

Here as well, you can pass $requestOptions:

PHP

$searchService->remove($entityManager, $anyObject, $requestOptions);

And wait for the engine to process your deletion completely:

PHP

$searchService->remove($entityManager, $anyObject)->wait();

Automatic indexing with Doctrine events

The bundle listens to three Doctrine events: postPersist, postUpdate, and preRemove. Every time data is inserted, updated, or deleted using Doctrine, your Algolia index stays in sync.

To unsubscribe from all three events, set doctrineSubscribedEvents to an empty array. This is useful when you index through a queue (such as RabbitMQ) or want to skip Algolia calls in development.

YAML

# Unsubscribe from all Doctrine events
algolia_search:
  doctrineSubscribedEvents: []

The three events are subscribed together or not at all. Passing a subset (for example, ['postPersist']) has no effect: the bundle still listens to all three.

Conditional indexing

Most of the time, there are some of your items that you don’t want to index. For instance, you may want to only index a post if it’s published.

In your configuration, you can specify when a post should be indexed with the index_if key. Because Algolia relies on the PropertyAccess component you can pass a method name, a class property name, or a nested key in a property array.

The property must evaluate to true to index the entity and false to bypass indexing. If you’re updating an entity using Doctrine and this property evaluates to false, the entity will be removed.

Example with a method or a property

YAML

algolia_search:
  indices:
    - name: posts
      class: App\Entity\Post
      index_if: isPublished

In this case, isPublished could be a method or a class property.

With a method:

PHP

class Post
{
    public function isPublished()
    {
        return !is_null($this->published_at);
    }
}

With a property:

PHP

class Post
{
    public $isPublished = true;
}

Example with an array

YAML

algolia_search:
  indices:
    - name: posts
      class: App\Entity\Post
      index_if: config.indexable

In this case, the bundle will read this value.

PHP

class Post
{
    public $config = ['indexable' => false];
}

Connection errors

Are you getting “Impossible to connect”, “Unable to connect”, or “Unreachable hosts” errors? First, make sure the issue isn’t at your end:

• Ensure you’re using the correct application ID and API key. Find these credentials on your Algolia dashboard.
• Check for recent changes in your code.
• Check the status of your data center provider.

If you’re using Firebase, you can only access Algolia from a paid Firebase tier.

If you can’t solve the problem yourself, contact the Algolia support team and provide them with the following information:

• The name of your Symfony integration and its version number

• A code snippet to reproduce the issue

• Error message or stack trace (if applicable)

• The name of the Algolia index that’s causing problems

• The exact UTC time of the event

• If you can’t connect to the Algolia API from your servers, send the output from the following command (run on any affected server):

  Command line

  curl -sL https://algolia.com/downloads/diag.sh > ./diag.sh && sudo ./diag.sh ALGOLIA_APPLICATION_ID
  
  Replace ALGOLIA_APPLICATION_ID with your Algolia application ID.

Indexing errors

Any Record at the position XX objectID=XX is too big errors during indexing are because you’ve exceeded the size limit for records. Reduce the size of your and try again.