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Elastic Docs ›Java REST Client [6.4] ›Java High Level REST Client ›Document APIs

Delete API

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Delete API

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Delete Request

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A DeleteRequest requires the following arguments:

DeleteRequest request = new DeleteRequest(
        "posts",    
        "doc",     
        "1");

Index

Type

Document id

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.timeValueMinutes(2)); 
request.timeout("2m");

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

Synchronous Execution

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DeleteResponse deleteResponse = client.delete(request, RequestOptions.DEFAULT);

Asynchronous Execution

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The asynchronous execution of a delete request requires both the DeleteRequest instance and an ActionListener instance to be passed to the asynchronous method:

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

The DeleteRequest 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.

A typical listener for DeleteResponse looks like:

ActionListener<DeleteResponse> listener = new ActionListener<DeleteResponse>() {
    @Override
    public void onResponse(DeleteResponse deleteResponse) {
        
    }

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

Called when the execution is successfully completed. The response is provided as an argument

Called in case of failure. The raised exception is provided as an argument

Delete Response

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

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

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

Handle the potential failures

It is also possible to check whether the document was found or not:

DeleteRequest request = new DeleteRequest("posts", "doc", "does_not_exist");
DeleteResponse deleteResponse = client.delete(request, RequestOptions.DEFAULT);
if (deleteResponse.getResult() == DocWriteResponse.Result.NOT_FOUND) {
    
}

Do something if the document to be deleted was not found

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

try {
    DeleteRequest request = new DeleteRequest("posts", "doc", "1").version(2);
    DeleteResponse deleteResponse = client.delete(request, RequestOptions.DEFAULT);
} catch (ElasticsearchException exception) {
    if (exception.status() == RestStatus.CONFLICT) {
        
    }
}

The raised exception indicates that a version conflict error was returned
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