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Bulk API
editBulk API
editThe bulk API makes it possible to perform many index/delete operations in a single API call. This can greatly increase the indexing speed.
The REST API endpoint is /_bulk
, and it expects the following JSON
structure:
action_and_meta_data\n optional_source\n action_and_meta_data\n optional_source\n .... action_and_meta_data\n optional_source\n
NOTE: the final line of data must end with a newline character \n
.
The possible actions are index
, create
, delete
and update
.
index
and create
expect a source on the next
line, and have the same semantics as the op_type
parameter to the
standard index API (i.e. create will fail if a document with the same
index and type exists already, whereas index will add or replace a
document as necessary). delete
does not expect a source on the
following line, and has the same semantics as the standard delete API.
update
expects that the partial doc, upsert and script and its options
are specified on the next line.
If you’re providing text file input to curl
, you must use the
--data-binary
flag instead of plain -d
. The latter doesn’t preserve
newlines. Example:
$ cat requests { "index" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "1" } } { "field1" : "value1" } $ curl -s -XPOST localhost:9200/_bulk --data-binary "@requests"; echo {"took":7,"items":[{"create":{"_index":"test","_type":"type1","_id":"1","_version":1}}]}
Because this format uses literal \n
's as delimiters, please be sure
that the JSON actions and sources are not pretty printed. Here is an
example of a correct sequence of bulk commands:
{ "index" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "1" } } { "field1" : "value1" } { "delete" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "2" } } { "create" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "3" } } { "field1" : "value3" } { "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1"} } { "doc" : {"field2" : "value2"} }
In the above example doc
for the update
action is a partial
document, that will be merged with the already stored document.
The endpoints are /_bulk
, /{index}/_bulk
, and {index}/{type}/_bulk
.
When the index or the index/type are provided, they will be used by
default on bulk items that don’t provide them explicitly.
A note on the format. The idea here is to make processing of this as
fast as possible. As some of the actions will be redirected to other
shards on other nodes, only action_meta_data
is parsed on the
receiving node side.
Client libraries using this protocol should try and strive to do something similar on the client side, and reduce buffering as much as possible.
The response to a bulk action is a large JSON structure with the individual results of each action that was performed. The failure of a single action does not affect the remaining actions.
There is no "correct" number of actions to perform in a single bulk call. You should experiment with different settings to find the optimum size for your particular workload.
If using the HTTP API, make sure that the client does not send HTTP chunks, as this will slow things down.
Versioning
editEach bulk item can include the version value using the
_version
/version
field. It automatically follows the behavior of the
index / delete operation based on the _version
mapping. It also
support the version_type
/_version_type
(see versioning)
Routing
editEach bulk item can include the routing value using the
_routing
/routing
field. It automatically follows the behavior of the
index / delete operation based on the _routing
mapping.
Parent
editEach bulk item can include the parent value using the _parent
/parent
field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index / delete
operation based on the _parent
/ _routing
mapping.
Timestamp
editDeprecated in 2.0.0-beta2.
The _timestamp
field is deprecated. Instead, use a normal date
field and set its value explicitly
Each bulk item can include the timestamp value using the
_timestamp
/timestamp
field. It automatically follows the behavior of
the index operation based on the _timestamp
mapping.
TTL
editDeprecated in 2.0.0-beta2.
The current _ttl
implementation is deprecated and will be replaced with a different implementation in a future version
Each bulk item can include the ttl value using the _ttl
/ttl
field.
It automatically follows the behavior of the index operation based on
the _ttl
mapping.
Write Consistency
editWhen making bulk calls, you can require a minimum number of active
shards in the partition through the consistency
parameter. The values
allowed are one
, quorum
, and all
. It defaults to the node level
setting of action.write_consistency
, which in turn defaults to
quorum
.
For example, in a N shards with 2 replicas index, there will have to be
at least 2 active shards within the relevant partition (quorum
) for
the operation to succeed. In a N shards with 1 replica scenario, there
will need to be a single shard active (in this case, one
and quorum
is the same).
Refresh
editThe refresh
parameter can be set to true
in order to refresh the relevant
primary and replica shards immediately after the bulk operation has occurred
and make it searchable, instead of waiting for the normal refresh interval to
expire. Setting it to true
can trigger additional load, and may slow down
indexing. Due to its costly nature, the refresh
parameter is set on the bulk request level
and is not supported on each individual bulk item.
Update
editWhen using update
action _retry_on_conflict
can be used as field in
the action itself (not in the extra payload line), to specify how many
times an update should be retried in the case of a version conflict.
The update
action payload, supports the following options: doc
(partial document), upsert
, doc_as_upsert
, script
and fields
. See update documentation for details on
the options. Curl example with update actions:
{ "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "_retry_on_conflict" : 3} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"} } { "update" : { "_id" : "0", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "_retry_on_conflict" : 3} } { "script" : { "inline": "ctx._source.counter += param1", "lang" : "js", "params" : {"param1" : 1}}, "upsert" : {"counter" : 1}} { "update" : {"_id" : "2", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "_retry_on_conflict" : 3} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "doc_as_upsert" : true } { "update" : {"_id" : "3", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "fields" : ["_source"]} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"} } { "update" : {"_id" : "4", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1"} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "fields": ["_source"]}