Update document

Update document

Introduced 1.0

If you need to update a document’s fields in your index, you can use the update document API operation. You can do so by specifying the new data you want to be in your index or by including a script in your request body, which OpenSearch runs to update the document. By default, the update operation only updates a document that exists in the index. If a document does not exist, the API returns an error. To upsert a document (update the document that exists or index a new one), use the upsert operation.

Path and HTTP methods

POST /<index>/_update/<_id>

Path parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Required
<index>	String	Name of the index.	Yes
<_id>	String	The ID of the document to update.	Yes

Query parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Required
if_seq_no	Integer	Only perform the update operation if the document has the specified sequence number.	No
if_primary_term	Integer	Perform the update operation if the document has the specified primary term.	No
lang	String	Language of the script. Default is `painless`.	No
require_alias	Boolean	Specifies whether the destination must be an index alias. Default is `false`.	No
refresh	Enum	If true, OpenSearch refreshes shards to make the operation visible to searching. Valid options are `true`, `false`, and `wait_for`, which tells OpenSearch to wait for a refresh before executing the operation. Default is `false`.	No
retry_on_conflict	Integer	The amount of times OpenSearch should retry the operation if there’s a document conflict. Default is 0.	No
routing	String	Value to route the update operation to a specific shard.	No
_source	Boolean or List	Whether or not to include the `_source` field in the response body. Default is `false`. This parameter also supports a comma-separated list of source fields for including multiple source fields in the query response.	No
_source_excludes	List	A comma-separated list of source fields to exclude in the query response.	No
_source_includes	List	A comma-separated list of source fields to include in the query response.	No
timeout	Time	How long to wait for a response from the cluster.	No
wait_for_active_shards	String	The number of active shards that must be available before OpenSearch processes the update request. Default is 1 (only the primary shard). Set to `all` or a positive integer. Values greater than 1 require replicas. For example, if you specify a value of 3, the index must have two replicas distributed across two additional nodes for the operation to succeed.	No

Request body fields

Your request body must contain the information with which you want to update your document. If you only want to replace certain fields in your document, your request body must include a doc object containing the fields that you want to update:

{
  "doc": {
    "first_name": "Thomas",
    "last_name": "Wayne"
    }
}

You can also use a script to tell OpenSearch how to update your document:

{
  "script" : {
    "source": "ctx._source.oldValue += params.newValue",
    "lang": "painless",
    "params" : {
      "newValue" : 10
    }
  }
}

Example requests

Update a document

POST /sample-index1/_update/1
{
  "doc": {
    "first_name" : "Bruce",
    "last_name" : "Wayne"
  }
}

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Update a document with a script

POST /test-index1/_update/1
{
  "script" : {
    "source": "ctx._source.secret_identity = \"Batman\""
  }
}

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Using the upsert operation

Upsert is an operation that conditionally either updates an existing document or inserts a new one based on information in the object.

In the following example, the upsert operation updates the first_name and last_name fields if a document already exists. If a document does not exist, a new one is indexed using content in the upsert object.

POST /sample-index1/_update/1
{
  "doc": {
    "first_name": "Martha",
    "last_name": "Rivera"
  },
  "upsert": {
    "last_name": "Oliveira",
    "age": "31"
  }
}

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Consider an index that contains the following document:

{
  "_index": "sample-index1",
  "_id": "1",
  "_score": 1,
  "_source": {
    "first_name": "Bruce",
    "last_name": "Wayne"
  }
}

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After the upsert operation, the document’s first_name and last_name fields are updated:

{
  "_index": "sample-index1",
  "_id": "1",
  "_score": 1,
  "_source": {
    "first_name": "Martha",
    "last_name": "Rivera"
  }
}

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If the document does not exist in the index, a new document is indexed with the fields specified in the upsert object:

{
  "_index": "sample-index1",
  "_id": "1",
  "_score": 1,
  "_source": {
    "last_name": "Oliveira",
    "age": "31"
  }
}

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You can also add doc_as_upsert to the request and set it to true to use the information in the doc field for performing the upsert operation:

POST /sample-index1/_update/1
{
  "doc": {
    "first_name": "Martha",
    "last_name": "Oliveira",
    "age": "31"
  },
  "doc_as_upsert": true
}

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Consider an index that contains the following document:

{
  "_index": "sample-index1",
  "_id": "1",
  "_score": 1,
  "_source": {
    "first_name": "Bruce",
    "last_name": "Wayne"
  }
}

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After the upsert operation, the document’s first_name and last_name fields are updated and an age field is added. If the document does not exist in the index, a new document is indexed with the fields specified in the upsert object. In both cases, the document is as follows:

{
  "_index": "sample-index1",
  "_id": "1",
  "_score": 1,
  "_source": {
    "first_name": "Martha",
    "last_name": "Oliveira",
    "age": "31"
  }
}

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Example response

{
  "_index": "sample-index1",
  "_id": "1",
  "_version": 3,
  "result": "updated",
  "_shards": {
    "total": 2,
    "successful": 2,
    "failed": 0
  },
  "_seq_no": 4,
  "_primary_term": 17
}

Response body fields

Field	Description
_index	The name of the index.
_id	The document’s ID.
_version	The document’s version.
result	The result of the update operation.
_shards	Detailed information about the cluster’s shards.
total	The total number of shards.
successful	The number of shards OpenSearch successfully updated the document in.
failed	The number of shards OpenSearch failed to update the document in.
_seq_no	The sequence number assigned when the document was indexed.
_primary_term	The primary term assigned when the document was indexed.