Changing data type

Elastic Stack Elasticsearch
1

Is there any workaround to change the datatype of a field without reindexing?

2

Nope.

3

for deleting a mapping and its documents?

4

Sorry?

5

i want to change the datatype of a field
Since i can't do that without reindexing, i thought that i could just drop the mapping and create a new one with the changes i need and then push the documents to the new mapping
is that possible?

6

Not unless you delete all the data as well.

7

Is there any reason why changing the field datatype isn't supported?
My index will contain a large volume of data which needs to be available at all times.
reindexing is an expensive operation and i just want to avoid or bypass it

8

This might not be usable at all since it seems like pretty bad practice but it might be of use to you :
Create a new field with the new dataType you want with the put mapping api :

PUT index/_mapping/type
{
  "properties": {
    "newField": {
      "type": "keyword"
    }
  }
}

And then run an update by query on the documents you want to have their field change :

POST index/type/_update_by_query
{
  "script": {
    "inline": "ctx._source.newField= ctx._source.oldFieldWithOtherDataType",
    "lang": "painless"
  },
  "query": {
    "match_all": {
    }
  }
}
1 Like
9

Yes. One of them is that elasticsearch/Lucene is using immutable files. What has been indexed will remain as it was when you indexed it which will lead to inconsistencies.
The only way to "regenerate" a new version of the Lucene files is to reindex.

3 Likes
10

Thanks Heinmci
but this doesn't solve my issue..

11

thanks guys for responding promptly
you've been of great help to me

12

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