Creating a mapping for an existing index with a new type in elasticsearch

Question

I found an article on elasticsearch's site describing how to 'reindex without downtime', but that's not really acceptable every time a new element is introduced that needs to have a custom mapping ( http://www.elasticsearch.org/blog/changing-mapping-with-zero-downtime/ )

Does anyone know why I can't create a mapping for an existing index but a new type in elasticsearch? The type doesn't exist yet, so why not? Maybe I'm missing something and it IS possible? If so, how can that be achieved?

Thanks, Vladimir

Answer 1

Here is a simple example to create two type mapping in a index, (one after another)

I've used i1 as index and t1 and t2 as types,

1. Create index

    curl -XPUT "http://localhost:9200/i1" 

2. Create type 1

    curl -XPUT "http://localhost:9200/i1/t1/_mapping" -d { "t1": { "properties": { "field1": { "type": "string" }, "field2": { "type": "string" } } } }' 

3. Create type 2

    curl -XPUT "localhost:9200/i1/t2/_mapping" -d' { "t2": { "properties": { "field3": { "type": "string" }, "field4": { "type": "string" } } } }' 

Now Looking at mapping( curl -XGET "http://localhost:9200/i1/_mapping" ), It seems like it is working.

Hope this helps!! Thanks

Answer 2

If you're using Elasticsearch 6.0 or above, an index can have only one type . So you have to create an index for your second type or create a custom type that would contain the two types.

For more details : Removal of multiple types in index