Creating an empty index in elasticsearch in node.js

Question

I am using offical elasticsearch npm. In my node app i am creating index using that client as follows

client.create({
   index: orgID, ---------->This is dynamic
   type: "places",
   body:{}
   }, function(error, response){
         if(error){                                    
         } else {                                                           
         }                                                        
   })

I need to PUT MAPPINGs for the above index, So for that i have to create an empty index(index without data) first and then i have to execute put mappings and then i have to put data into index.

So for that i have to create an empty index, but in offical elasticsearch client the above method(create) is written in " POST " method so its expecting an body.

For that i have to give an empty body {} as above. So how can i create an empty index using official javascript client. Please share your ideas.

Answer 1

Another way to go about this is to use index templates . The idea of index templates is to let ES automatically create a missing index whenever needed, ie when you're indexing a document whose index name matches some pattern and also apply a pre-defined mapping (+ eventually aliases) to that new index.

For instance, you can create an index template like this:

curl -XPUT localhost:9200/_template/template_1 -d '{
    "template" : "your_dynamic_index_name_pattern",
    "settings" : {
        "number_of_shards" : 1
    },
    "mappings" : {
        "places" : {
            // mapping definition of your places type
        }
    }
}'

When that's done, anytime you will index a new document (eg using your client.create() example above) whose index name matches the pattern, ES will create the index automatically and also PUT the mapping, before indexing your document.