# Passing external variables to a painless script

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/passing-external-variables-to-a-painless-script/198014>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [September 4, 2019, 9:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/passing-external-variables-to-a-painless-script/198014 "2019-09-04T09:09:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![manish\_kakoti](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/manish_kakoti/32/53285_2.png) [@manish\_kakoti](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/manish_kakoti)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2019, 9:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/passing-external-variables-to-a-painless-script/198014/1 "2019-09-04T09:09:00Z")

</div>

In painless script, i tried passing a variable which stringifies a json object, like this:

```auto
let sourcedData = JSON.stringify(body)
body: {
       lang: 'painless',
       script: 'if (ctx._source.files == null) { ctx._source.files = params.object } else { ctx._source.files.add(params.object) }'
     params: {
         object: sourcedData
    }
    },
    id,
    index,
    refresh: true,
    type: DocType
  }).catch(logAndRethrow)

```

Although it does not produce any error, but the field `files` is null, Is there any way we can pass these kinds of variables within painless?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 9:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/passing-external-variables-to-a-painless-script/198014/2 "2019-10-02T09:19:35Z")

</div>

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