# Changing simple type mapping
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [May 23, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698 "2014-05-23T16:09:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Brian\_Lamb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Brian_Lamb)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/1 "2014-05-23T16:09:37Z")
Hi all,
I need to change the mapping on one of my fields. It is currently an
integer and I need it to be a string.
Ideally, I would be able to just change the type. But the documentation
says that I cannot do that (unless that has changed in the last year, I
think all the articles I read were at least a year old).
The next best suggestion I liked was changing the mapping to be a multi
field. So I did the following:
curl -XPUT '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/_mapping)' -d
'{"myType":{"properties":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"multi\_field","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}}}}'
But the result is:
curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/\_mapping/myType](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/_mapping/myType)'
{"myIndex":{"mappings":{"myType":{"index\_analyzer":"indexAnalyzer","search\_analyzer":"searchAnalyzer","\_boost":{"null\_value":1.0},"properties":{" **isInitialized**":{"type":"string"},,"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}
The issue is that when I try to add a document that has copyrightYear =
'2013/2014' for example, I get an error:
Error in one or more bulk request actions:
index: /myIndex/myType/73148865 caused MapperParsingException[failed to
parse [copyright.copyrightYear]]; nested: NumberFormatException[For input
string: "2013/2014"];
Note that the adding uses the Elastica client but the error is due to the
mapping. Is there a better approach to this problem? I don't really want to
reindex all the things because I have about 22 million records.
Thanks!
Brian Lamb
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### Author:  [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/2 "2014-05-23T16:50:34Z")
You need to reindex or you need to add a new field IMHO.
--
David 😉
Twitter : @dadoonet / @elasticsearchfr / @scrutmydocs
> Le 23 mai 2014 à 18:09, Brian Lamb [brian.lamb@researchsquare.com](mailto:brian.lamb@researchsquare.com) a écrit :
>
> Hi all,
>
> I need to change the mapping on one of my fields. It is currently an integer and I need it to be a string.
>
> Ideally, I would be able to just change the type. But the documentation says that I cannot do that (unless that has changed in the last year, I think all the articles I read were at least a year old).
>
> The next best suggestion I liked was changing the mapping to be a multi field. So I did the following:
>
> curl -XPUT '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/_mapping)' -d '{"myType":{"properties":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"multi\_field","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}}}}'
>
> But the result is:
>
> curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/\_mapping/myType](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/_mapping/myType)'
> {"myIndex":{"mappings":{"myType":{"index\_analyzer":"indexAnalyzer","search\_analyzer":"searchAnalyzer","\_boost":{"null\_value":1.0},"properties":{" **isInitialized**":{"type":"string"},,"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}
>
> The issue is that when I try to add a document that has copyrightYear = '2013/2014' for example, I get an error:
>
> Error in one or more bulk request actions:
>
> index: /myIndex/myType/73148865 caused MapperParsingException[failed to parse [copyright.copyrightYear]]; nested: NumberFormatException[For input string: "2013/2014"];
>
> Note that the adding uses the Elastica client but the error is due to the mapping. Is there a better approach to this problem? I don't really want to reindex all the things because I have about 22 million records.
>
> Thanks!
>
> ## Brian Lamb
>
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### Author:  [@Clinton\_Gormley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clinton_Gormley)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2014, 5:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/3 "2014-05-23T17:06:46Z")
Hi Brian
What you can do is to update the mapping of the numeric field to {
ignore\_malformed: true }, then it will just ignore the bad data, but still
use the multi-field:
```
PUT /my_index/my_type/1
{"number": 123}
PUT /my_index/_mapping/my_type
{
"properties": {
"number": {
"type": "long",
"ignore_malformed": true,
"fields": {
"string": {
"type": "string"
}
}
}
}
}
PUT /my_index/my_type/1
{"number": "x"}
GET /_search
{
"query": {
"match": {
"number.string": "x"
}
}
}
```
On 23 May 2014 18:09, Brian Lamb [brian.lamb@researchsquare.com](mailto:brian.lamb@researchsquare.com) wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I need to change the mapping on one of my fields. It is currently an
> integer and I need it to be a string.
>
> Ideally, I would be able to just change the type. But the documentation
> says that I cannot do that (unless that has changed in the last year, I
> think all the articles I read were at least a year old).
>
> The next best suggestion I liked was changing the mapping to be a multi
> field. So I did the following:
>
> curl -XPUT '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/_mapping)' -d
> '{"myType":{"properties":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"multi\_field","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}}}}'
>
> But the result is:
>
> curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/\_mapping/myType](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/_mapping/myType)'
>
> {"myIndex":{"mappings":{"myType":{"index\_analyzer":"indexAnalyzer","search\_analyzer":"searchAnalyzer","\_boost":{"null\_value":1.0},"properties":{" **isInitialized**":{"type":"string"},,"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}
>
> The issue is that when I try to add a document that has copyrightYear =
> '2013/2014' for example, I get an error:
>
> Error in one or more bulk request actions:
>
> index: /myIndex/myType/73148865 caused MapperParsingException[failed to
> parse [copyright.copyrightYear]]; nested: NumberFormatException[For input
> string: "2013/2014"];
>
> Note that the adding uses the Elastica client but the error is due to the
> mapping. Is there a better approach to this problem? I don't really want to
> reindex all the things because I have about 22 million records.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Brian Lamb
>
> --
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> .
> For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout).
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### Author:  [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/4 "2014-05-23T17:08:40Z")
w00t! Sounds like I missed that option.
Thanks Clint!
--
David Pilato | Technical Advocate | [Elasticsearch.com](http://Elasticsearch.com)
@dadoonet | @elasticsearchfr
Le 23 mai 2014 à 19:06:50, Clinton Gormley ([clint@traveljury.com](mailto:clint@traveljury.com)) a écrit:
Hi Brian
What you can do is to update the mapping of the numeric field to { ignore\_malformed: true }, then it will just ignore the bad data, but still use the multi-field:
```
PUT /my_index/my_type/1
{"number": 123}
PUT /my_index/_mapping/my_type
{
"properties": {
"number": {
"type": "long",
"ignore_malformed": true,
"fields": {
"string": {
"type": "string"
}
}
}
}
}
PUT /my_index/my_type/1
{"number": "x"}
GET /_search
{
"query": {
"match": {
"number.string": "x"
}
}
}
```
On 23 May 2014 18:09, Brian Lamb [brian.lamb@researchsquare.com](mailto:brian.lamb@researchsquare.com) wrote:
Hi all,
I need to change the mapping on one of my fields. It is currently an integer and I need it to be a string.
Ideally, I would be able to just change the type. But the documentation says that I cannot do that (unless that has changed in the last year, I think all the articles I read were at least a year old).
The next best suggestion I liked was changing the mapping to be a multi field. So I did the following:
curl -XPUT '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/_mapping)' -d '{"myType":{"properties":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"multi\_field","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}}}}'
But the result is:
curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/\_mapping/myType](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/_mapping/myType)'
{"myIndex":{"mappings":{"myType":{"index\_analyzer":"indexAnalyzer","search\_analyzer":"searchAnalyzer","\_boost":{"null\_value":1.0},"properties":{" **isInitialized**":{"type":"string"},,"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}
The issue is that when I try to add a document that has copyrightYear = '2013/2014' for example, I get an error:
Error in one or more bulk request actions:
index: /myIndex/myType/73148865 caused MapperParsingException[failed to parse [copyright.copyrightYear]]; nested: NumberFormatException[For input string: "2013/2014"];
Note that the adding uses the Elastica client but the error is due to the mapping. Is there a better approach to this problem? I don't really want to reindex all the things because I have about 22 million records.
Thanks!
## Brian Lamb
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### Author:  [@Brian\_Lamb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Brian_Lamb)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/5 "2014-05-23T21:07:56Z")
Hi Clinton,
Thank you for your suggestion. What will that do for the existing data?
Will I still be able to store copyrightYear as either a number or a string?
Thanks,
Brian Lamb
On Friday, May 23, 2014 1:09:46 PM UTC-4, David Pilato wrote:
> w00t! Sounds like I missed that option.
>
> Thanks Clint!
>
> --
> _David Pilato_ | _Technical Advocate_ | _[Elasticsearch.com](http://Elasticsearch.com)_
> @dadoonet [https://twitter.com/dadoonet](https://twitter.com/dadoonet) | @elasticsearchfr[https://twitter.com/elasticsearchfr](https://twitter.com/elasticsearchfr)
>
> Le 23 mai 2014 à 19:06:50, Clinton Gormley ([cl...@traveljury.com](mailto:cl...@traveljury.com)\)
> a écrit:
>
> Hi Brian
>
> What you can do is to update the mapping of the numeric field to {
> ignore\_malformed: true }, then it will just ignore the bad data, but still
> use the multi-field:
>
> ```
> PUT /my_index/my_type/1
> {"number": 123}
>
> PUT /my_index/_mapping/my_type
> {
> "properties": {
> "number": {
> "type": "long",
> "ignore_malformed": true,
> "fields": {
> "string": {
> "type": "string"
> }
> }
> }
> }
> }
>
> PUT /my_index/my_type/1
> {"number": "x"}
>
> GET /_search
> {
> "query": {
> "match": {
> "number.string": "x"
> }
> }
> }
>
> ```
>
> On 23 May 2014 18:09, Brian Lamb \<[brian...@researchsquare.com](mailto:brian...@researchsquare.com)\
>
> > wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I need to change the mapping on one of my fields. It is currently an
> > integer and I need it to be a string.
> >
> > Ideally, I would be able to just change the type. But the documentation
> > says that I cannot do that (unless that has changed in the last year, I
> > think all the articles I read were at least a year old).
> >
> > The next best suggestion I liked was changing the mapping to be a multi
> > field. So I did the following:
> >
> > curl -XPUT '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/_mapping)' -d
> > '{"myType":{"properties":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"multi\_field","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}}}}'
> >
> > But the result is:
> >
> > curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/\_mapping/myType](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/_mapping/myType)'
> >
> > {"myIndex":{"mappings":{"myType":{"index\_analyzer":"indexAnalyzer","search\_analyzer":"searchAnalyzer","\_boost":{"null\_value":1.0},"properties":{" **isInitialized**":{"type":"string"},,"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}
> >
> > The issue is that when I try to add a document that has copyrightYear =
> > '2013/2014' for example, I get an error:
> >
> > Error in one or more bulk request actions:
> >
> > index: /myIndex/myType/73148865 caused MapperParsingException[failed to
> > parse [copyright.copyrightYear]]; nested: NumberFormatException[For input
> > string: "2013/2014"];
> >
> > Note that the adding uses the Elastica client but the error is due to the
> > mapping. Is there a better approach to this problem? I don't really want to
> > reindex all the things because I have about 22 million records.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > ## Brian Lamb
> >
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "elasticsearch" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> > email to [elasticsearc...@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearc...@googlegroups.com) \.
> > To view this discussion on the web visit
> > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/8adc6f39-85bd-4610-b354-8457b77b8cfd%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/8adc6f39-85bd-4610-b354-8457b77b8cfd%40googlegroups.com)[https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/8adc6f39-85bd-4610-b354-8457b77b8cfd%40googlegroups.com?utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=footer](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/8adc6f39-85bd-4610-b354-8457b77b8cfd%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer)
> > .
> > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout).
>
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### Author:  [@Brian\_Lamb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Brian_Lamb)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/6 "2014-05-23T21:08:38Z")
Hi Clinton,
Thank you for your suggestion. What will that do for the existing data?
Will I still be able to store copyrightYear as either a number or a string?
Thanks,
Brian Lamb
On Friday, May 23, 2014 1:09:46 PM UTC-4, David Pilato wrote:
> w00t! Sounds like I missed that option.
>
> Thanks Clint!
>
> --
> _David Pilato_ | _Technical Advocate_ | _[Elasticsearch.com](http://Elasticsearch.com)_
> @dadoonet [https://twitter.com/dadoonet](https://twitter.com/dadoonet) | @elasticsearchfr[https://twitter.com/elasticsearchfr](https://twitter.com/elasticsearchfr)
>
> Le 23 mai 2014 à 19:06:50, Clinton Gormley ([cl...@traveljury.com](mailto:cl...@traveljury.com)\)
> a écrit:
>
> Hi Brian
>
> What you can do is to update the mapping of the numeric field to {
> ignore\_malformed: true }, then it will just ignore the bad data, but still
> use the multi-field:
>
> ```
> PUT /my_index/my_type/1
> {"number": 123}
>
> PUT /my_index/_mapping/my_type
> {
> "properties": {
> "number": {
> "type": "long",
> "ignore_malformed": true,
> "fields": {
> "string": {
> "type": "string"
> }
> }
> }
> }
> }
>
> PUT /my_index/my_type/1
> {"number": "x"}
>
> GET /_search
> {
> "query": {
> "match": {
> "number.string": "x"
> }
> }
> }
>
> ```
>
> On 23 May 2014 18:09, Brian Lamb \<[brian...@researchsquare.com](mailto:brian...@researchsquare.com)\
>
> > wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I need to change the mapping on one of my fields. It is currently an
> > integer and I need it to be a string.
> >
> > Ideally, I would be able to just change the type. But the documentation
> > says that I cannot do that (unless that has changed in the last year, I
> > think all the articles I read were at least a year old).
> >
> > The next best suggestion I liked was changing the mapping to be a multi
> > field. So I did the following:
> >
> > curl -XPUT '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/myType/_mapping)' -d
> > '{"myType":{"properties":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"multi\_field","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}}}}'
> >
> > But the result is:
> >
> > curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/myIndex/\_mapping/myType](http://localhost:9200/myIndex/_mapping/myType)'
> >
> > {"myIndex":{"mappings":{"myType":{"index\_analyzer":"indexAnalyzer","search\_analyzer":"searchAnalyzer","\_boost":{"null\_value":1.0},"properties":{" **isInitialized**":{"type":"string"},,"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer","fields":{"copyrightYear":{"type":"integer"},"textual":{"type":"string"}}}
> >
> > The issue is that when I try to add a document that has copyrightYear =
> > '2013/2014' for example, I get an error:
> >
> > Error in one or more bulk request actions:
> >
> > index: /myIndex/myType/73148865 caused MapperParsingException[failed to
> > parse [copyright.copyrightYear]]; nested: NumberFormatException[For input
> > string: "2013/2014"];
> >
> > Note that the adding uses the Elastica client but the error is due to the
> > mapping. Is there a better approach to this problem? I don't really want to
> > reindex all the things because I have about 22 million records.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > ## Brian Lamb
> >
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### Author:  [@Clinton\_Gormley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clinton_Gormley)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/7 "2014-05-23T21:34:13Z")
> Thank you for your suggestion. What will that do for the existing data?
>
> Will I still be able to store copyrightYear as either a number or a string?
It won't change any existing data. However, for data you index in the
future it will index either a number and a string, or (if it can't coerce
the value into a number), just a string, eg: if you index these two docs:
{ "copyrightYear": "2010"}
{ "copyrightYear": "2011/2012"}
then "copyrightYear" will contain 2010, and "copyrightYear.textual" will
contain "2010", "2011", "2012"
>
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 1:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/changing-simple-type-mapping/17698/8 "2017-07-06T01:27:17Z")