Bulk API

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Performs multiple indexing or delete operations in a single API call. This reduces overhead and can greatly increase indexing speed.

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"} }

Request

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POST /_bulk

POST /<index>/_bulk

Description

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Provides a way to perform multiple index, create, delete, and update actions in a single request.

The actions are specified in the request body using a 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

The index and create actions expect a source on the next line, and have the same semantics as the op_type parameter in the standard index API: create fails if a document with the same name already exists in the index, index adds or replaces a document as necessary.

update expects that the partial doc, upsert, and script and its options are specified on the next line.

delete does not expect a source on the next line and has the same semantics as the standard delete API.

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 the _bulk endpoint, the Content-Type header should be set to application/x-ndjson.

Because this format uses literal \n's as delimiters, make sure that the JSON actions and sources are not pretty printed.

If you specify an index in the request URI, it is used for any actions that don’t explicitly specify an index.

A note on the format: The idea here is to make processing of this as fast as possible. As some of the actions are 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.

There is no "correct" number of actions to perform in a single bulk request. Experiment with different settings to find the optimal size for your particular workload.

When using the HTTP API, make sure that the client does not send HTTP chunks, as this will slow things down.

Client support for bulk requests
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Some of the officially supported clients provide helpers to assist with bulk requests and reindexing of documents from one index to another:

Submitting bulk requests with cURL
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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}}]}
Optimistic Concurrency Control
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Each 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
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Each 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
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Each 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
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When 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
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Control 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.

Security
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See URL-based access control.

Path parameters

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<index>
(Optional, string) Name of the index to perform the bulk actions against.

Query parameters

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pipeline
(Optional, string) ID of the pipeline to use to preprocess incoming documents.
refresh
(Optional, enum) If true, Elasticsearch refreshes the affected shards to make this operation visible to search, if wait_for then wait for a refresh to make this operation visible to search, if false do nothing with refreshes. Valid values: true, false, wait_for. Default: false.
routing
(Optional, string) Target the specified primary shard.
_source
(Optional, string) True or false to return the _source field or not, or a list of fields to return.
_source_excludes
(Optional, string) A list of fields to exclude from the returned _source field.
_source_includes
(Optional, string) A list of fields to extract and return from the _source field.
master_timeout
(Optional, time units) Specifies the period of time to wait for a connection to the master node. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error. Defaults to 30s.
timeout
(Optional, time units) Specifies the period of time to wait for a response. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error. Defaults to 30s.
wait_for_active_shards

(Optional, string) The number of shard copies that must be active before proceeding with the operation. Set to all or any positive integer up to the total number of shards in the index (number_of_replicas+1). Default: 1, the primary shard.

See Active shards.

Request body

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The request body contains a newline-delimited list of create, delete, index, and update actions and their associated source data.

create

(Optional, string) Indexes the specified document if it does not already exist. The following line must contain the source data to be indexed.

_index
(Optional, string) The name of the target index. Required if not specified as a path parameter.
_id
(Optional, string) The document ID. If no ID is specified, a document ID is automatically generated.
delete

(Optional, string) Removes the specified document from the index.

_index
(Optional, string) The name of the target index. Required if not specified as a path parameter.
_id
(Required, string) The document ID.
index

(Optional, string) Indexes the specified document. If the document exists, replaces the document and increments the version. The following line must contain the source data to be indexed.

_index
(Optional, string) The name of the target index. Required if not specified as a path parameter.
_id
(Optional, string) The document ID. If no ID is specified, a document ID is automatically generated.
update

(Optional, string) Performs a partial document update. The following line must contain the partial document and update options.

_index
(Optional, string) The name of the target index. Required if not specified as a path parameter.
_id
(Required, string) The document ID.
doc
(Optional, object) The partial document to index. Required for update operations.
<fields>
(Optional, object) The document source to index. Required for create and index operations.

Response body

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The bulk API’s response contains the individual results of each operation in the request, returned in the order submitted. The success or failure of an individual operation does not affect other operations in the request.

took
(integer) How long, in milliseconds, it took to process the bulk request.
errors
(boolean) If true, one or more of the operations in the bulk request did not complete successfully.
items

(array of objects) Contains the result of each operation in the bulk request, in the order they were submitted.

Properties of items objects
<action>

(object) The parameter name is an action associated with the operation. Possible values are create, delete, index, and update.

The parameter value is an object that contains information for the associated operation.

Properties of <action>
_index
(string) The index name or alias associated with the operation.
_type
(string) The document type associated with the operation. Elasticsearch indices now support a single document type: _doc. See Removal of mapping types.
_id
(integer) The document ID associated with the operation.
_version

(integer) The document version associated with the operation. The document version is incremented each time the document is updated.

This parameter is only returned for successful actions.

result

(string) Result of the operation. Successful values are created, deleted, and updated.

This parameter is only returned for successful operations.

_shards

(object) Contains shard information for the operation.

This parameter is only returned for successful operations.

Properties of _shards
total
(integer) Number of shards the operation attempted to execute on.
successful
(integer) Number of shards the operation succeeded on.
failed
(integer) Number of shards the operation attempted to execute on but failed.
_seq_no

(integer) The sequence number assigned to the document for the operation. Sequence numbers are used to ensure an older version of a document doesn’t overwrite a newer version. See Optimistic concurrency control.

This parameter is only returned for successful operations.

_primary_term

(integer) The primary term assigned to the document for the operation. See Optimistic concurrency control.

This parameter is only returned for successful operations.

status
(integer) HTTP status code returned for the operation.
error

(object) Contains additional information about the failed operation.

The parameter is only returned for failed operations.

Properties of error
type
(string) Error type for the operation.
reason
(string) Reason for the failed operation.
index_uuid
(string) The universally unique identifier (UUID) of the index associated with the failed operation.
shard
(string) ID of the shard associated with the failed operation.
index
(string) The index name or alias associated with the failed operation.

Examples

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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 API returns the following result:

{
   "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
         }
      }
   ]
}
Bulk update example
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When 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}
Example with failed actions
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The following bulk API request includes operations that update non-existent documents.

POST /_bulk
{ "update": {"_id": "5", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "foo"} }
{ "update": {"_id": "6", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "foo"} }
{ "create": {"_id": "7", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "my_field": "foo" }

Because these operations cannot complete successfully, the API returns a response with an errors flag of true.

The response also includes an error object for any failed operations. The error object contains additional information about the failure, such as the error type and reason.

{
  "took": 486,
  "errors": true,
  "items": [
    {
      "update": {
        "_index": "index1",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id": "5",
        "status": 404,
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][5]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "update": {
        "_index": "index1",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id": "6",
        "status": 404,
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][6]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "create": {
        "_index": "index1",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id": "7",
        "_version": 1,
        "result": "created",
        "_shards": {
          "total": 2,
          "successful": 1,
          "failed": 0
        },
        "_seq_no": 0,
        "_primary_term": 1,
        "status": 201
      }
    }
  ]
}

To return only information about failed operations, use the filter_path query parameter with an argument of items.*.error.

POST /_bulk?filter_path=items.*.error
{ "update": {"_id": "5", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "baz"} }
{ "update": {"_id": "6", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "baz"} }
{ "update": {"_id": "7", "_index": "index1"} }
{ "doc": {"my_field": "baz"} }

The API returns the following result.

{
  "items": [
    {
      "update": {
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][5]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "update": {
        "error": {
          "type": "document_missing_exception",
          "reason": "[_doc][6]: document missing",
          "index_uuid": "aAsFqTI0Tc2W0LCWgPNrOA",
          "shard": "0",
          "index": "index1"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}