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 newline delimited JSON
(NDJSON) 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
. Each newline character
may be preceded by a carriage return \r
. When sending requests to this endpoint the
Content-Type
header should be set to application/x-ndjson
.
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 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", "_id" : "1" } } { "field1" : "value1" } $ curl -s -H "Content-Type: application/x-ndjson" -XPOST localhost:9200/_bulk --data-binary "@requests"; echo {"took":7, "errors": false, "items":[{"index":{"_index":"test","_type":"_doc","_id":"1","_version":1,"result":"created","forced_refresh":false}}]}
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:
POST _bulk { "index" : { "_index" : "test", "_id" : "1" } } { "field1" : "value1" } { "delete" : { "_index" : "test", "_id" : "2" } } { "create" : { "_index" : "test", "_id" : "3" } } { "field1" : "value3" } { "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_index" : "test"} } { "doc" : {"field2" : "value2"} }
The result of this bulk operation is:
{ "took": 30, "errors": false, "items": [ { "index": { "_index": "test", "_type": "_doc", "_id": "1", "_version": 1, "result": "created", "_shards": { "total": 2, "successful": 1, "failed": 0 }, "status": 201, "_seq_no" : 0, "_primary_term": 1 } }, { "delete": { "_index": "test", "_type": "_doc", "_id": "2", "_version": 1, "result": "not_found", "_shards": { "total": 2, "successful": 1, "failed": 0 }, "status": 404, "_seq_no" : 1, "_primary_term" : 2 } }, { "create": { "_index": "test", "_type": "_doc", "_id": "3", "_version": 1, "result": "created", "_shards": { "total": 2, "successful": 1, "failed": 0 }, "status": 201, "_seq_no" : 2, "_primary_term" : 3 } }, { "update": { "_index": "test", "_type": "_doc", "_id": "1", "_version": 2, "result": "updated", "_shards": { "total": 2, "successful": 1, "failed": 0 }, "status": 200, "_seq_no" : 3, "_primary_term" : 4 } } ] }
The endpoints are /_bulk
and /{index}/_bulk
. When the index is provided, it
will be used by default on bulk items that don’t provide it 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 in the same order as the actions that appeared in the request. 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.
Optimistic Concurrency Control
editEach index
and delete
action within a bulk API call may include the
if_seq_no
and if_primary_term
parameters in their respective action
and meta data lines. The if_seq_no
and if_primary_term
parameters control
how operations are executed, based on the last modification to existing
documents. See Optimistic concurrency control for more details.
Versioning
editEach bulk item can include the version value using the
version
field. It automatically follows the behavior of the
index / delete operation based on the _version
mapping. It also
support the version_type
(see versioning).
Routing
editEach bulk item can include the routing value using the
routing
field. It automatically follows the behavior of the
index / delete operation based on the _routing
mapping.
Wait For Active Shards
editWhen making bulk calls, you can set the wait_for_active_shards
parameter to require a minimum number of shard copies to be active
before starting to process the bulk request. See
here for further details and a usage
example.
Refresh
editControl when the changes made by this request are visible to search. See refresh.
Only the shards that receive the bulk request will be affected by
refresh
. Imagine a _bulk?refresh=wait_for
request with three
documents in it that happen to be routed to different shards in an index
with five shards. The request will only wait for those three shards to
refresh. The other two shards that make up the index do not
participate in the _bulk
request at all.
Update
editWhen using the update
action, retry_on_conflict
can be used as a 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
, params
(for
script), lang
(for script), and _source
. See update documentation for details on
the options. Example with update actions:
POST _bulk { "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_index" : "index1", "retry_on_conflict" : 3} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"} } { "update" : { "_id" : "0", "_index" : "index1", "retry_on_conflict" : 3} } { "script" : { "source": "ctx._source.counter += params.param1", "lang" : "painless", "params" : {"param1" : 1}}, "upsert" : {"counter" : 1}} { "update" : {"_id" : "2", "_index" : "index1", "retry_on_conflict" : 3} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "doc_as_upsert" : true } { "update" : {"_id" : "3", "_index" : "index1", "_source" : true} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"} } { "update" : {"_id" : "4", "_index" : "index1"} } { "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "_source": true}
Security
editPartial responses
editTo ensure fast responses, the bulk API will respond with partial results if one or more shards fail. See Shard failures for more information.