elasticsearch/docs/java-api/index_.asciidoc

[[index_]]
== Index API

The index API allows one to index a typed JSON document into a specific
index and make it searchable.


[[generate]]
=== Generate JSON document

There are several different ways of generating a JSON document:

* Manually (aka do it yourself) using native `byte[]` or as a `String`

* Using a `Map` that will be automatically converted to its JSON
equivalent

* Using a third party library to serialize your beans such as
http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonHome[Jackson]

* Using built-in helpers XContentFactory.jsonBuilder()

Internally, each type is converted to `byte[]` (so a String is converted
to a `byte[]`). Therefore, if the object is in this form already, then
use it. The `jsonBuilder` is highly optimized JSON generator that
directly constructs a `byte[]`.


==== Do It Yourself

Nothing really difficult here but note that you will have to encode
dates according to the
{ref}/mapping-date-format.html[Date Format].

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
String json = "{" +
        "\"user\":\"kimchy\"," +
        "\"postDate\":\"2013-01-30\"," +
        "\"message\":\"trying out Elasticsearch\"" +
    "}";
--------------------------------------------------


[[using-map]]
==== Using Map

Map is a key:values pair collection. It represents a JSON structure:

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
Map<String, Object> json = new HashMap<String, Object>();
json.put("user","kimchy");
json.put("postDate",new Date());
json.put("message","trying out Elasticsearch");
--------------------------------------------------


[[beans]]
==== Serialize your beans

Elasticsearch already uses Jackson but shades it under
`org.elasticsearch.common.jackson` package. +
 So, you can add your own Jackson version in your `pom.xml` file or in
your classpath. See http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonDownload[Jackson
Download Page].

For example:

[source,xml]
--------------------------------------------------
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
    <version>2.1.3</version>
</dependency>
--------------------------------------------------

Then, you can start serializing your beans to JSON:

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.*;

// instance a json mapper
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper(); // create once, reuse

// generate json
byte[] json = mapper.writeValueAsBytes(yourbeaninstance);
--------------------------------------------------


[[helpers]]
==== Use Elasticsearch helpers

Elasticsearch provides built-in helpers to generate JSON content.

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
import static org.elasticsearch.common.xcontent.XContentFactory.*;

XContentBuilder builder = jsonBuilder()
    .startObject()
        .field("user", "kimchy")
        .field("postDate", new Date())
        .field("message", "trying out Elasticsearch")
    .endObject()
--------------------------------------------------

Note that you can also add arrays with `startArray(String)` and
`endArray()` methods. By the way, the `field` method +
 accepts many object types. You can directly pass numbers, dates and even
other XContentBuilder objects.

If you need to see the generated JSON content, you can use the
`string()` method.

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
String json = builder.string();
--------------------------------------------------


[[index-doc]]
=== Index document

The following example indexes a JSON document into an index called
twitter, under a type called tweet, with id valued 1:

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
import static org.elasticsearch.common.xcontent.XContentFactory.*;

IndexResponse response = client.prepareIndex("twitter", "tweet", "1")
        .setSource(jsonBuilder()
                    .startObject()
                        .field("user", "kimchy")
                        .field("postDate", new Date())
                        .field("message", "trying out Elasticsearch")
                    .endObject()
                  )
        .execute()
        .actionGet();
--------------------------------------------------

Note that you can also index your documents as JSON String and that you
don't have to give an ID:

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
String json = "{" +
        "\"user\":\"kimchy\"," +
        "\"postDate\":\"2013-01-30\"," +
        "\"message\":\"trying out Elasticsearch\"" +
    "}";

IndexResponse response = client.prepareIndex("twitter", "tweet")
        .setSource(json)
        .execute()
        .actionGet();
--------------------------------------------------

`IndexResponse` object will give you a report:

[source,java]
--------------------------------------------------
// Index name
String _index = response.getIndex();
// Type name
String _type = response.getType();
// Document ID (generated or not)
String _id = response.getId();
// Version (if it's the first time you index this document, you will get: 1)
long _version = response.getVersion();
// isCreated() is true if the document is a new one, false if it has been updated
boolean created = response.isCreated();
--------------------------------------------------

For more information on the index operation, check out the REST
{ref}/docs-index_.html[index] docs.


=== Operation Threading

The index API allows one to set the threading model the operation will be
performed when the actual execution of the API is performed on the same
node (the API is executed on a shard that is allocated on the same
server).

The options are to execute the operation on a different thread, or to
execute it on the calling thread (note that the API is still asynchronous). By
default, `operationThreaded` is set to `true` which means the operation
is executed on a different thread.