# Using ElasticSearch to index an external json api

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-elasticsearch-to-index-an-external-json-api/9916>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [December 2, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-elasticsearch-to-index-an-external-json-api/9916 "2012-12-02T22:35:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ryan\_Amburgy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ryan_amburgy/32/2597_2.png) [@Ryan\_Amburgy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Ryan_Amburgy)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-elasticsearch-to-index-an-external-json-api/9916/1 "2012-12-02T22:35:09Z")

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Bare with me as I am fairly new to webdev. I'm working on an app that  
needs to be able to search through a fairly large external API and display  
the JSON results. Is this something I would use elasticSearch for? Will  
elastic search store a local copy of the data from the API?

I'll be watching this close to answer and clarify any questions.

Thanks in advance,  
Ryan

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**Author:** ![otisg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/otisg/32/492_2.png) [@otisg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/otisg)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-elasticsearch-to-index-an-external-json-api/9916/2 "2012-12-03T02:33:39Z")

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Hi,

You could write an ES River that calls that API, gets the results, converts  
them to JSON objects/documents suitable for ES consumption and have them  
indexed that way.  
Or you could write an external app that does the same thing but, unlike the  
River version, lives/runs outside ES.  
If the API returns JSON you may be able to index that as-is, if you want  
all of it indexed.

ES will store the original JSON fed to it in the \_source field.

## Otis

ELASTICSEARCH Performance Monitoring - [Sematext Monitoring | Infrastructure Monitoring Service](http://sematext.com/spm/index.html)  
Search Analytics - [Cloud Monitoring Tools & Services | Sematext](http://sematext.com/search-analytics/index.html)

On Sunday, December 2, 2012 5:35:09 PM UTC-5, Ryan Amburgy wrote:

> Bare with me as I am fairly new to webdev. I'm working on an app that  
> needs to be able to search through a fairly large external API and display  
> the JSON results. Is this something I would use elasticSearch for? Will  
> Elasticsearch store a local copy of the data from the API?
> 
> I'll be watching this close to answer and clarify any questions.
> 
> Thanks in advance,  
> Ryan

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:01am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-elasticsearch-to-index-an-external-json-api/9916/3 "2017-07-06T03:01:50Z")

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