Exact search (KNN) using SearchParams(exact=True) appears to have no effect on search results

[AnisZakari]

Description:

Hello! Thank you for your excellent work on this project.

I'm working with a small document collection and need exact search (KNN) for accuracy. According to the documentation, this should be achievable using SearchParams:

knn_result = client.query_points(
    collection_name="arxiv-titles-instructorxl-embeddings",
    query=item["vector"],
    limit=k,
    search_params=models.SearchParams(
        exact=True,  # Turns on the exact search mode
    ),
).points

However, after running several tests, the exact=True parameter doesn't appear to change the search results.

Observations:

1. QdrantLocal implementation: The search_params argument doesn't seem to be utilized in the query_points method of the QdrantLocal class (which handles QdrantClient(':memory:')). See [this line](

   qdrant-client/qdrant_client/local/qdrant_local.py

   Line 446 in 981117a

   search_params: Optional[types.SearchParams] = None,

   ).

2. QdrantRemote implementation: The search_params argument appears to be used in the QdrantRemote class's query_points method. I tested this by instantiating the client with client = QdrantClient("http://localhost:6333"), but the search results remain identical regardless of whether search_params=models.SearchParams(exact=True) is specified or not.

Question:

Am I missing something in my implementation, or is there an issue with how the exact parameter is being processed?

Thank you for your help!

[generall]

QdrantLocal - The search_params argument doesn't seem to be utilized in the query_points

Correct, local mode is a python-only implementation which always does full-scan

but the search results remain identical regardless of whether search_params=models.SearchParams(exact=True) is specified or not.

this might be becasue non-exact search is still 100% accurate, have you ruled out that possibility?

[AnisZakari]

QdrantLocal - The search_params argument doesn't seem to be utilized in the query_points

Correct, local mode is a python-only implementation which always does full-scan

but the search results remain identical regardless of whether search_params=models.SearchParams(exact=True) is specified or not.

this might be becasue non-exact search is still 100% accurate, have you ruled out that possibility?

Thank you for youre reply,

I have an evaluation dataset to assess scores, and I've implemented a custom KNN implementation using the same embeddings.
Comparing the results, I can confirm that Qdrant is not performing exact search even when I explicitly specify exact=True in the search parameters.

[joein]

Hey @AnisZakari

Could you please provide a code snippet with your implementation?