add_field()

This operation adds a field to the schema of a collection.

Request Syntax

add_field(
    field_name: str,
    datatype: DataType
)

PARAMETERS:

• field_name (string) -

  [REQUIRED]

  The name of the field.

• datatype (DataType) -

  [REQUIRED]

  The data type of the field.

  You can choose from the following options when selecting a data type for different fields:

  • Primary key field: Use DataType.INT64 or DataType.VARCHAR.

  • Scalar fields: Choose from a variety of options, including

    • DataType.BOOL,

    • DataType.INT8,

    • DataType.INT16,

    • DataType.INT32,

    • DataType.INT64,

    • DataType.FLOAT,

    • DataType.DOUBLE,

    • DataType.BINARY_VECTOR,

    • DataType.FLOAT_VECTOR,

    • DataType.FLOAT16_VECTOR,

    • __DataType.BFLOAT16_VECTOR,

    • DataType.VARCHAR,

    • DataType.JSON, and

    • DataType.ARRAY.

  • Vector fields: Select DataType.BINARY_VECTOR or DataType.FLOAT_VECTOR.

• is_primary (bool) -

  Whether the current field is the primary field in a collection.

  notes

  • Each collection has only one primary field.

  • A primary field should be of either the DataType.INT64 type or the DataType.VARCHAR type.

• max_length (int) -

  The maximum length of the field value.

  This is mandatory for a DataType.VARCHAR field.

• element_type (str) -

  The data type of the elements in the field value.

  This is mandatory for a DataType.Array field.

• max_capacity (int) -

  The number of elements in an Array field value.

  This is mandatory for a DataType.Array field.

• dim (int) -

  The dimension of the vector embeddings.

  This is mandatory for a DataType.FLOAT_VECTOR field or a DataType.BINARY_VECTOR field.

• is_partition_key (bool) -

  Whether the current field serves as the partition key. Each collection can have one partition key.

  what is the partition key?

  To facilitate partition-oriented multi-tenancy, you can set a field as the partition key field so that Milvus hashes the field values and distributes entities among the specified number of partitions accordingly.

  When retrieving entities, ensure that the partition key field is used in the boolean expression to filter out entities of a specific field value.

  For details, refer to Use Partition Key and Multi-tenancy.

RETURN TYPE:

CollectionSchema

RETURNS:

A CollectionSchema object contains the fields that have been added to the schema.

EXCEPTIONS:

• MilvusException

  This exception will be raised when any error occurs during this operation.

Examples

from pymilvus import DataType, FieldSchema, CollectionSchema

schema = CollectionSchema(
    fields = [primary_key, vector]
)

# Add the primary key field
schema.add_field(
    field_name="id",
    datatype=DataType.INT64,
    is_primary=True
)

# Add the vector field
schema.add_field(
    field_name="vector",
    datatype=FLOAT_VECTOR,
    dim=768
)

# Add a scalar field to the schema
schema.add_field(
    field_name="scalar_01",
    datatype=DataType.INT32
)

# {
#     'auto_id': False, 
#     'description': '', 
#     'fields': [
#         {
#             'name': 'id', 
#             'description': '', 
#             'type': <DataType.INT64: 5>, 
#             'is_primary': True, 
#             'auto_id': False
#         }, 
#         {
#             'name': 'vector', 
#             'description': '', 
#             'type': <DataType.FLOAT_VECTOR: 101>, 
#             'params': {'dim': 768}
#        }, 
#        {
#             'name': 'scalar_01', 
#             'description': '', 
#             'type': <DataType.INT32: 4>
#        }
#     ]
# }