Index API

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Index Request

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An IndexRequest requires the following arguments:

IndexRequest request = new IndexRequest(
        "posts", 
        "doc",  
        "1");   
String jsonString = "{" +
        "\"user\":\"kimchy\"," +
        "\"postDate\":\"2013-01-30\"," +
        "\"message\":\"trying out Elasticsearch\"" +
        "}";
request.source(jsonString, XContentType.JSON); 

Index

Type

Document id

Document source provided as a String

Providing the document source

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The document source can be provided in different ways in addition to the String example shown above:

Map<String, Object> jsonMap = new HashMap<>();
jsonMap.put("user", "kimchy");
jsonMap.put("postDate", new Date());
jsonMap.put("message", "trying out Elasticsearch");
IndexRequest indexRequest = new IndexRequest("posts", "doc", "1")
        .source(jsonMap); 

Document source provided as a Map which gets automatically converted to JSON format

XContentBuilder builder = XContentFactory.jsonBuilder();
builder.startObject();
{
    builder.field("user", "kimchy");
    builder.timeField("postDate", new Date());
    builder.field("message", "trying out Elasticsearch");
}
builder.endObject();
IndexRequest indexRequest = new IndexRequest("posts", "doc", "1")
        .source(builder);  

Document source provided as an XContentBuilder object, the Elasticsearch built-in helpers to generate JSON content

IndexRequest indexRequest = new IndexRequest("posts", "doc", "1")
        .source("user", "kimchy",
                "postDate", new Date(),
                "message", "trying out Elasticsearch"); 

Document source provided as Object key-pairs, which gets converted to JSON format

Optional arguments

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The following arguments can optionally be provided:

request.routing("routing"); 

Routing value

request.parent("parent"); 

Parent value

request.timeout(TimeValue.timeValueSeconds(1)); 
request.timeout("1s"); 

Timeout to wait for primary shard to become available as a TimeValue

Timeout to wait for primary shard to become available as a String

request.setRefreshPolicy(WriteRequest.RefreshPolicy.WAIT_UNTIL); 
request.setRefreshPolicy("wait_for");                            

Refresh policy as a WriteRequest.RefreshPolicy instance

Refresh policy as a String

request.version(2); 

Version

request.versionType(VersionType.EXTERNAL); 

Version type

request.opType(DocWriteRequest.OpType.CREATE); 
request.opType("create"); 

Operation type provided as an DocWriteRequest.OpType value

Operation type provided as a String: can be create or update (default)

request.setPipeline("pipeline"); 

The name of the ingest pipeline to be executed before indexing the document

Synchronous Execution

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When executing a IndexRequest in the following manner, the client waits for the IndexResponse to be returned before continuing with code execution:

IndexResponse indexResponse = client.index(request, RequestOptions.DEFAULT);

Synchronous calls may throw an IOException in case of either failing to parse the REST response in the high-level REST client, the request times out or similar cases where there is no response coming back from the server.

In cases where the server returns a 4xx or 5xx error code, the high-level client tries to parse the response body error details instead and then throws a generic ElasticsearchException and adds the original ResponseException as a suppressed exception to it.

Asynchronous Execution

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Executing a IndexRequest can also be done in an asynchronous fashion so that the client can return directly. Users need to specify how the response or potential failures will be handled by passing the request and a listener to the asynchronous index method:

client.indexAsync(request, RequestOptions.DEFAULT, listener); 

The IndexRequest to execute and the ActionListener to use when the execution completes

The asynchronous method does not block and returns immediately. Once it is completed the ActionListener is called back using the onResponse method if the execution successfully completed or using the onFailure method if it failed. Failure scenarios and expected exceptions are the same as in the synchronous execution case.

A typical listener for index looks like:

listener = new ActionListener<IndexResponse>() {
    @Override
    public void onResponse(IndexResponse indexResponse) {
        
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(Exception e) {
        
    }
};

Called when the execution is successfully completed.

Called when the whole IndexRequest fails.

Index Response

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The returned IndexResponse allows to retrieve information about the executed operation as follows:

String index = indexResponse.getIndex();
String type = indexResponse.getType();
String id = indexResponse.getId();
long version = indexResponse.getVersion();
if (indexResponse.getResult() == DocWriteResponse.Result.CREATED) {
    
} else if (indexResponse.getResult() == DocWriteResponse.Result.UPDATED) {
    
}
ReplicationResponse.ShardInfo shardInfo = indexResponse.getShardInfo();
if (shardInfo.getTotal() != shardInfo.getSuccessful()) {
    
}
if (shardInfo.getFailed() > 0) {
    for (ReplicationResponse.ShardInfo.Failure failure :
            shardInfo.getFailures()) {
        String reason = failure.reason(); 
    }
}

Handle (if needed) the case where the document was created for the first time

Handle (if needed) the case where the document was rewritten as it was already existing

Handle the situation where number of successful shards is less than total shards

Handle the potential failures

If there is a version conflict, an ElasticsearchException will be thrown:

IndexRequest request = new IndexRequest("posts", "doc", "1")
        .source("field", "value")
        .setIfSeqNo(100L)
        .setIfPrimaryTerm(1L);
try {
    IndexResponse response = client.index(request, RequestOptions.DEFAULT);
} catch(ElasticsearchException e) {
    if (e.status() == RestStatus.CONFLICT) {
        
    }
}

The raised exception indicates that a version conflict error was returned

Same will happen in case opType was set to create and a document with same index, type and id already existed:

IndexRequest request = new IndexRequest("posts", "doc", "1")
        .source("field", "value")
        .opType(DocWriteRequest.OpType.CREATE);
try {
    IndexResponse response = client.index(request, RequestOptions.DEFAULT);
} catch(ElasticsearchException e) {
    if (e.status() == RestStatus.CONFLICT) {
        
    }
}

The raised exception indicates that a version conflict error was returned