# How is an update handled when an integer field is incremented?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-is-an-update-handled-when-an-integer-field-is-incremented/130697>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [May 5, 2018, 5:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-is-an-update-handled-when-an-integer-field-is-incremented/130697 "2018-05-05T05:51:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2018, 6:49am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-is-an-update-handled-when-an-integer-field-is-incremented/130697/2 "2018-05-05T06:49:54Z")

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An update will result in the full document being reindexed as all segments that make up a shard in Elasticsearch are immutable. If you plan to update documents frequently, you are likely to encounter performance problems as Elasticsearch is not optimized for that. Have a look at [this thread](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/bulk-update-is-too-slow-elasticsearch-6-2/129213) for more details.

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