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Unique key constraints in Azure Cosmos DB

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APPLIES TO: NoSQL

Unique keys add a layer of data integrity to an Azure Cosmos DB container. You create a unique key policy when you create an Azure Cosmos DB container. With unique keys, you make sure that one or more values within a logical partition is unique. You also can guarantee uniqueness per partition key.

After you create a container with a unique key policy, the creation of a new or an update of an existing item resulting in a duplicate within a logical partition is prevented, as specified by the unique key constraint. The partition key combined with the unique key guarantees the uniqueness of an item within the scope of the container.

For example, consider an Azure Cosmos DB container with Email address as the unique key constraint and CompanyID as the partition key. When you configure the user's email address with a unique key, each item has a unique email address within a given CompanyID. Two items can't be created with duplicate email addresses and with the same partition key value. In Azure Cosmos DB's API for NoSQL, items are stored as JSON values. These JSON values are case sensitive. When you choose a property as a unique key, you can insert case sensitive values for that property. For example, If you have a unique key defined on the name property, "Gaby" is different from "gaby" and you can insert both into the container.

To create items with the same email address, but not the same first name, last name, and email address, add more paths to the unique key policy. Instead of creating a unique key based on the email address only, you also can create a unique key with a combination of the first name, last name, and email address. This key is known as a composite unique key. In this case, each unique combination of the three values within a given CompanyID is allowed.

For example, the container can contain items with the following values, where each item honors the unique key constraint.

CompanyID First name Last name Email address
Contoso Gaby Duperre gaby@contoso.com
Contoso Gaby Duperre gaby@fabrikam.com
Fabrikam Gaby Duperre gaby@fabrikam.com
Fabrikam Ivan Duperre gaby@fabrikam.com
Fabrkam Duperre gaby@fabraikam.com
Fabrkam gaby@fabraikam.com

If you attempt to insert another item with the combinations listed in the previous table, you receive an error. The error indicates that the unique key constraint wasn't met. You receive either Resource with specified ID or name already exists or Resource with specified ID, name, or unique index already exists as a return message.

Define a unique key

You can define unique keys only when you create an Azure Cosmos DB container. A unique key is scoped to a logical partition. In the previous example, if you partition the container based on the ZIP code, you can have the same items in each logical partition. Consider the following properties when you create unique keys:

  • You can't update an existing container to use a different unique key. In other words, after a container is created with a unique key policy, the policy can't be changed.

  • To set a unique key for an existing container, create a new container with the unique key constraint. Use the appropriate data migration tool to move the data from the existing container to the new container. For SQL containers, use the container copy jobs to move data. For MongoDB containers, use mongoimport.exe or mongorestore.exe to move data.

  • A unique key policy can have a maximum of 16 path values. For example, the values can be /firstName, /lastName, and /address/zipCode. Each unique key policy can have a maximum of 10 unique key constraints or combinations. In the previous example, first name, last name, and email address together are one constraint. This constraint uses 3 out of the 16 possible paths.

  • When a container has a unique key policy, Request Unit (RU) charges to create, update, and delete an item are slightly higher.

  • Sparse unique keys are not supported. If some unique path values are missing, they're treated as null values, which take part in the uniqueness constraint. For this reason, there can be only a single item with a null value to satisfy this constraint.

  • Unique key names are case-sensitive. For example, consider a container with the unique key constraint set to /address/zipcode. If your data has a field named ZipCode, Azure Cosmos DB inserts "null" as the unique key because zipcode isn't the same as ZipCode. Because of this case sensitivity, all other records with ZipCode can't be inserted because the duplicate "null" violates the unique key constraint.

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