Adding a custom indexer

Adding a custom indexer

This topic discusses how to create a custom indexer. We’ve recently made a performance improvment that enables you to declare one or more shared indexers; if one of the shared indexes is already up-to-date, it doesn’t need to be reindexed.

To implement your own indexer, add the following code in your module:

Custom indexer logic

Your custom indexer class should implement \Magento\Framework\Indexer\ActionInterface, and the indexer should be able to perform three types of operations:

  • Row reindex: processing a single entry from a dictionary; responsibility of executeRow($id)
  • List reindex: processing a set of dictionary entries; responsibility of executeList($ids), where $ids is an array of entity IDs
  • Full reindex: processing all entities from a specific dictionary; responsibility of executeFull()

Indexer configuration

In the etc directory of your module, add indexer.xml with the following:

  • indexer ID
  • indexer class name
  • indexer title
  • indexer description
  • indexer view ID
  • shared indexes, if any

Use the optional shared_index= parameter to improve performance if your indexer is related to another indexer. In this example, if catalog rule product needs to be reindexed, but other catalog product rule index is up-to-date, then only catalog rule product is reindexed.

All indexers related to a module should be declared in one file.

MView configuration

Add the mview.xml configuration file in the etc module directory, where you declare the following:

  • indexer view ID
  • indexer class
  • the database tables the indexer tracks
  • what column data is sent to the indexer

Example

All Mview declarations related to a module should be declared in one file.

Example of a custom indexer implementation

To push best-selling products to the top of a category listing, process statistics about sales to change the product position dynamically.

Assuming your module is named <VendorName>_Merchandizing, you must write the appropriate code in the indexer class:

<VendorName>\Merchandizing\Model\Indexer;

class Popular implements \Magento\Indexer\Model\ActionInterface, \Magento\Framework\Mview\ActionInterface
{
    public function executeFull(); //Should take into account all placed orders in the system
    public function executeList($ids); //Works with a set of placed orders (mass actions and so on)
    public function executeRow($id); //Works in runtime for a single order using plugins
    public function execute($ids); //Used by mview, allows you to process multiple placed orders in the "Update on schedule" mode
}

Next, declare the indexer in Merchandizing/etc/indexer.xml:

<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../Indexer/etc/indexer.xsd">
  <indexer id="merchandizing_popular" view_id="merchandizing_popular_order" class="Vendor\Merchandizing\Model\Indexer\Popular">
    <title translate="true">Popular Products</title>
    <description translate="true">Sort products in a category by popularity</description>
  </indexer>
</config>

Finally, declare the indexer view (merchandizing_popular_order) that tracks sales (Merchandizing/etc/mview.xml):

<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../../../../lib/internal/Magento/Framework/Mview/etc/mview.xsd">
  <view id=" merchandizing_popular_order" class="Vendor\Merchandizing\Model\Indexer\Popular" group="indexer">
    <subscriptions>
      <table name="sales_order" entity_column="entity_id" />
    </subscriptions>
  </view>
</config>

These settings start <VendorName>\Merchandizing\Model\Indexer\Popular::execute method every time an order is changed.

Now when an order is placed, the Popular Products indexer calculates the sorting order of the products by popularity and stores this data in the index table, so that it can be used in product displaying logic.