Azure Search: Create Index for complex types

Question

I have a blob storage that contains some xml-files. I want to use the power of Azure Search to easily find documents in this blob storage. The structure of the XML-files are in this format:

<items>
    <item>
        <id>12345</id>
        <text>This is an example</text>
    <item>
    <item>
        <id>12346</id>
        <text>This is an example</text>
    <item>
</items>

Creating an index in Azure Search fails because the index requires marking a field as IsKey at the top level, but I don't have such a field. How can I solve this? Underneath is the code to generate an index for ComplexTypes:

var complexField = new ComplexField("items");
complexField.Fields.Add(new SearchableField("id") { IsKey = true, IsFilterable = true, IsSortable = true });
complexField.Fields.Add(new SearchableField("text") { IsFilterable = true, IsSortable = true });

var index = new SearchIndex(IndexName)
{
    Fields =
    {
        complexField
    }
};

Can anyone guide me in the correct direction?

Answer 1

I would recommend using a Class for creating the Index.

For example:

using Microsoft.Azure.Search;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

namespace Test
{
    public class Records
    {
        [Key]
        [IsSortable, IsFilterable]
        public string id { get; set; }

        [IsSortable, IsFilterable]
        public string text { get; set; }
    }
}

And then create it using something like the following:

var _serviceClient = new SearchServiceClient("<ServiceName>", new SearchCredentials("<ApiKey">));

public bool Create()
{
    var newIndex = new Microsoft.Azure.Search.Models.Index()
    {
        Name = "<Index_Name>",
        Fields = FieldBuilder.BuildForType<Records>()
    };
    _serviceClient.Indexes.Create(newIndex);
}