Common REST parameters

Introduced 1.0

OpenSearch supports the following parameters for all REST operations:

Human-readable output

To convert output units to human-readable values (for example, 1h for 1 hour and 1kb for 1,024 bytes), add ?human=true to the request URL.

Example request

The following request requires response values to be in human-readable format:

  2. GET <index_name>/_search?human=true

Pretty result

To get back JSON responses in a readable format, add ?pretty=true to the request URL.

Example request

The following request requires the response to be displayed in pretty JSON format:

  2. GET <index_name>/_search?pretty=true

Content type

To specify the type of content in the request body, use the Content-Type key name in the request header. Most operations support JSON, YAML, and CBOR formats.

Example request

The following request specifies JSON format for the request body:

  2. curl -H "Content-type: application/json" -XGET localhost:9200/_scripts/<template_name>

Request body in query string

If the client library does not accept a request body for non-POST requests, use the source query string parameter to pass the request body. Also, specify the source_content_type parameter with a supported media type such as application/json.

Example request

The following request searches the documents in the shakespeare index for a specific field and value:

  2. GET shakespeare/search?source={"query":{"exists":{"field":"speaker"}}}&source_content_type=application/json

Stack traces

To include the error stack trace in the response when an exception is raised, add error_trace=true to the request URL.

Example request

The following request sets error_trace to true so that the response returns exception-triggered errors:

  2. GET <index_name>/_search?error_trace=true

Filtered responses

To reduce the response size use the filter_path parameter to filter the fields that are returned. This parameter takes a comma-separated list of filters. It supports using wildcards to match any field or part of a field’s name. You can also exclude fields with -.

Example request

The following request specifies filters to limit the fields returned in the response:

  2. GET _search?filter_path=<field_name>.*,-<field_name>