Mapping changes

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A number of changes have been made to mappings to remove ambiguity and to ensure that conflicting mappings cannot be created.

One major change is that dynamically added fields must have their mapping confirmed by the master node before indexing continues. This is to avoid a problem where different shards in the same index dynamically add different mappings for the same field. These conflicting mappings can silently return incorrect results and can lead to index corruption.

This change can make indexing slower when frequently adding many new fields. We are looking at ways of optimising this process but we chose safety over performance for this extreme use case.

Conflicting field mappings

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Fields with the same name, in the same index, in different types, must have the same mapping, with the exception of the copy_to, dynamic, enabled, ignore_above, include_in_all, and properties parameters, which may have different settings per field.

PUT my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "type_one": {
      "properties": {
        "name": { 
          "type": "string"
        }
      }
    },
    "type_two": {
      "properties": {
        "name": { 
          "type":     "string",
          "analyzer": "english"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The two name fields have conflicting mappings and will prevent Elasticsearch from starting.

Elasticsearch will not start in the presence of conflicting field mappings. These indices must be deleted or reindexed using a new mapping.

The ignore_conflicts option of the put mappings API has been removed. Conflicts can’t be ignored anymore.

Fields cannot be referenced by short name

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A field can no longer be referenced using its short name. Instead, the full path to the field is required. For instance:

PUT my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "my_type": {
      "properties": {
        "title":     { "type": "string" }, 
        "name": {
          "properties": {
            "title": { "type": "string" }, 
            "first": { "type": "string" },
            "last":  { "type": "string" }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

This field is referred to as title.

This field is referred to as name.title.

Previously, the two title fields in the example above could have been confused with each other when using the short name title.

Type name prefix removed

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Previously, two fields with the same name in two different types could sometimes be disambiguated by prepending the type name. As a side effect, it would add a filter on the type name to the relevant query. This feature was ambiguous — a type name could be confused with a field name — and didn’t work everywhere e.g. aggregations.

Instead, fields should be specified with the full path, but without a type name prefix. If you wish to filter by the _type field, either specify the type in the URL or add an explicit filter.

The following example query in 1.x:

GET my_index/_search
{
  "query": {
    "match": {
      "my_type.some_field": "quick brown fox"
    }
  }
}

would be rewritten in 2.0 as:

GET my_index/my_type/_search 
{
  "query": {
    "match": {
      "some_field": "quick brown fox" 
    }
  }
}

The type name can be specified in the URL to act as a filter.

The field name should be specified without the type prefix.

Field names may not contain dots

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In 1.x, it was possible to create fields with dots in their name, for instance:

PUT my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "my_type": {
      "properties": {
        "foo.bar": { 
          "type": "string"
        },
        "foo": {
          "properties": {
            "bar": { 
              "type": "string"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

These two fields cannot be distinguised as both are referred to as foo.bar.

You can no longer create fields with dots in the name.

Type names may not start with a dot

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In 1.x, Elasticsearch would issue a warning if a type name included a dot, e.g. my.type. Now that type names are no longer used to distinguish between fields in different types, this warning has been relaxed: type names may now contain dots, but they may not begin with a dot. The only exception to this is the special .percolator type.

Type names may not be longer than 255 characters

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Mapping type names may not be longer than 255 characters. Long type names will continue to function on indices created before upgrade, but it will not be possible create types with long names in new indices.

Types may no longer be deleted

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In 1.x it was possible to delete a type mapping, along with all of the documents of that type, using the delete mapping API. This is no longer supported, because remnants of the fields in the type could remain in the index, causing corruption later on.

Instead, if you need to delete a type mapping, you should reindex to a new index which does not contain the mapping. If you just need to delete the documents that belong to that type, then use the delete-by-query plugin instead.

Type meta-fields

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The meta-fields associated with had configuration options removed, to make them more reliable:

  • _id configuration can no longer be changed. If you need to sort, use the _uid field instead.
  • _type configuration can no longer be changed.
  • _index configuration can no longer be changed.
  • _routing configuration is limited to marking routing as required.
  • _field_names configuration is limited to disabling the field.
  • _size configuration is limited to enabling the field.
  • _timestamp configuration is limited to enabling the field, setting format and default value.
  • _boost has been removed.
  • _analyzer has been removed.

Importantly, meta-fields can no longer be specified as part of the document body. Instead, they must be specified in the query string parameters. For instance, in 1.x, the routing could be specified as follows:

PUT my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "my_type": {
      "_routing": {
        "path": "group" 
      },
      "properties": {
        "group": { 
          "type": "string"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

PUT my_index/my_type/1 
{
  "group": "foo"
}

This 1.x mapping tells Elasticsearch to extract the routing value from the group field in the document body.

This indexing request uses a routing value of foo.

In 2.0, the routing must be specified explicitly:

PUT my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "my_type": {
      "_routing": {
        "required": true 
      },
      "properties": {
        "group": {
          "type": "string"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

PUT my_index/my_type/1?routing=bar 
{
  "group": "foo"
}

Routing can be marked as required to ensure it is not forgotten during indexing.

This indexing request uses a routing value of bar.

_timestamp and _ttl deprecated

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The _timestamp and _ttl fields are deprecated, but will remain functional for the remainder of the 2.x series.

Instead of the _timestamp field, use a normal date field and set the value explicitly.

The current _ttl functionality will be replaced in a future version with a new implementation of TTL, possibly with different semantics, and will not depend on the _timestamp field.

Analyzer mappings

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Previously, index_analyzer and search_analyzer could be set separately, while the analyzer setting would set both. The index_analyzer setting has been removed in favour of just using the analyzer setting.

If just the analyzer is set, it will be used at index time and at search time. To use a different analyzer at search time, specify both the analyzer and a search_analyzer.

The index_analyzer, search_analyzer, and analyzer type-level settings have also been removed, as it is no longer possible to select fields based on the type name.

The _analyzer meta-field, which allowed setting an analyzer per document has also been removed. It will be ignored on older indices.

Date fields and Unix timestamps

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Previously, date fields would first try to parse values as a Unix timestamp — milliseconds-since-the-epoch — before trying to use their defined date format. This meant that formats like yyyyMMdd could never work, as values would be interpreted as timestamps.

In 2.0, we have added two formats: epoch_millis and epoch_second. Only date fields that use these formats will be able to parse timestamps.

These formats cannot be used in dynamic templates, because they are indistinguishable from long values.

Default date format

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The default date format has changed from date_optional_time to strict_date_optional_time, which expects a 4 digit year, and a 2 digit month and day, (and optionally, 2 digit hour, minute, and second).

A dynamically added date field, by default, includes the epoch_millis format to support timestamp parsing. For instance:

PUT my_index/my_type/1
{
  "date_one": "2015-01-01" 
}

Has format: "strict_date_optional_time||epoch_millis".

mapping.date.round_ceil setting

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The mapping.date.round_ceil setting for date math parsing has been removed.

Boolean fields

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Boolean fields used to have a string fielddata with F meaning false and T meaning true. They have been refactored to use numeric fielddata, with 0 for false and 1 for true. As a consequence, the format of the responses of the following APIs changed when applied to boolean fields: 0/1 is returned instead of F/T:

In addition, terms aggregations use a custom formatter for boolean (like for dates and ip addresses, which are also backed by numbers) in order to return the user-friendly representation of boolean fields: false/true:

"buckets": [
  {
     "key": 0,
     "key_as_string": "false",
     "doc_count": 42
  },
  {
     "key": 1,
     "key_as_string": "true",
     "doc_count": 12
  }
]

index_name and path removed

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The index_name setting was used to change the name of the Lucene field, and the path setting was used on object fields to determine whether the Lucene field should use the full path (including parent object fields), or just the final name.

These setting have been removed as their purpose is better served with the copy_to parameter.

Murmur3 Fields

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Fields of type murmur3 can no longer change doc_values or index setting. They are always mapped as follows:

{
  "type":       "murmur3",
  "index":      "no",
  "doc_values": true
}

Attachment Fields

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Fields of type attachment used to index their content in the "main" multi-field — a sub-field with the same name as the main field, e.g. my_attachment.my_attachment. This sub-field will be renamed to my_attachment.content. Any mapping settings (e.g. analyzer) on the old my_attachment.my_attachment field will be lost. In this case, the index needs to be reindexed in 2.x.

The attachment sub-fields do not support copy_to.

Mappings in config files not supported

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The ability to specify mappings in configuration files has been removed. To specify default mappings that apply to multiple indexes, use index templates instead.

Along with this change, the following settings have been removed:

  • index.mapper.default_mapping_location
  • index.mapper.default_percolator_mapping_location

Fielddata formats

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Now that doc values are the default for fielddata, specialized in-memory formats have become an esoteric option. These fielddata formats have been removed:

  • fst on string fields
  • compressed on geo points

The default fielddata format will be used instead.

Posting and doc-values codecs

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It is no longer possible to specify per-field postings and doc values formats in the mappings. This setting will be ignored on indices created before 2.0 and will cause mapping parsing to fail on indices created on or after 2.0. For old indices, this means that new segments will be written with the default postings and doc values formats of the current codec.

It is still possible to change the whole codec by using the index.codec setting. Please however note that using a non-default codec is discouraged as it could prevent future versions of Elasticsearch from being able to read the index.

Compress and compress threshold

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The compress and compress_threshold options have been removed from the _source field and fields of type binary. These fields are compressed by default. If you would like to increase compression levels, use the new index.codec: best_compression setting instead.

position_offset_gap

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The position_offset_gap option is renamed to position_increment_gap. This was done to clear away the confusion. Elasticsearch’s position_increment_gap now is mapped directly to Lucene’s position_increment_gap

The default position_increment_gap is now 100. Indexes created in Elasticsearch 2.0.0 will default to using 100 and indexes created before that will continue to use the old default of 0. This was done to prevent phrase queries from matching across different values of the same term unexpectedly. Specifically, 100 was chosen to cause phrase queries with slops up to 99 to match only within a single value of a field.

copy_to and multi fields

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A copy_to within a multi field is ignored from version 2.0 on. With any version after 2.1 or 2.0.1 creating a mapping that has a copy_to within a multi field will result in an exception.