Custom Data

Add custom or external data to your index.

This article is not relevant if your custom data is already in a definition field. Instead, you can simply add the property to your custom index definition.

If you wish to add custom or external data to your index, Ucommerce provides the interface IAdorn<T> where T is the search model type, e.g. ProductSearchModel. The interface provides 2 methods, one for general properties and one for language-specific (multilingual) properties:

General properties

Task<IImmutableList<T>> Adorn(
            IImmutableList<T> items,
            DeserializedDataBase<T> rawData,
            CancellationToken token);

Language-specific properties

Task<ImmutableDictionary<CultureInfo, IImmutableList<T>>> Adorn(
            ImmutableDictionary<CultureInfo, IImmutableList<T>> items,
            DeserializedDataBase<T> rawData,
            CancellationToken token);

You cannot store nested data structures; for instance, you cannot store a list of product relationships, each with its list of products. If you require such flexibility, you will need to create your own search model.

In many cases it's only necessary to implement one of the two methods of the interface to add the desired data. When this happens, simply return the items parameter using return await items.InTask();in the other method.

Below is an example of an adorner that adds the product id to the product index.

It is not recommended to use the id externally. This is also the reason the id is not part of the search model.

The below adorner is not meant for production as it is not very performant to make a database call for each product to get the id.

public class ProductIdAdorner : IAdorn<ProductSearchModel>
    {
        private readonly UcommerceDbContext _dbContext;

        /// <summary>
        /// Constructor
        /// </summary>
        public ProductIdAdorner(UcommerceDbContext dbContext)
        {
            _dbContext = dbContext;
        }
        
        /// <inheritdoc />
        public virtual async Task<IImmutableList<ProductSearchModel>> Adorn(
            IImmutableList<ProductSearchModel> items,
            DeserializedDataBase<ProductSearchModel> rawData,
            CancellationToken token)
        {
            foreach (var productSearchModel in items)
            {
                var productEntity = await _dbContext.Products.FirstAsync(p => p.Guid == productSearchModel.Id, token);
                productSearchModel["LegacyId"] = productEntity.Id;
            }

            return items;
        }

        /// <inheritdoc />
        public virtual Task<ImmutableDictionary<CultureInfo, IImmutableList<ProductSearchModel>>> Adorn(
            ImmutableDictionary<CultureInfo, IImmutableList<ProductSearchModel>> items,
            DeserializedDataBase<ProductSearchModel> rawData,
            CancellationToken token) =>
            items.InTask();
    }

To register your adorner, add it to the service collection like this:

builder.Services.AddScoped<IAdorn<ProductSearchModel>, ProductIdAdorner>();

Use AddScoped instead of AddSingleton if the adorner depends on any scoped instances, e.g. UcommerceDbContext like above. Microsoft Dependency Injection framework will let you know if you forget by throwing an exception on startup.

Remember to check that the property is part of the index definition, otherwise add it:

this.Field(p => p["LegacyId"], typeof(int));

A rebuild of the indices is needed after changing the index definition.