How to delete an attribute when sending a partial object update to Algolia?

Question

I need to use partialUpdateObject from the Algolia Javascript SDK to delete an attribute from an object that is already in the index.

My scenario is that I have a description field on my object that is optional. If the user originally sets a description and then later deletes it, I want to remove the description altogether from the object.

I do not want to overwrite the whole object (without the description attribute) because I have some count attributes on the object that I do not want to have to recalculate.

As far as I can tell in the documentation there isn't a way to do it and my workaround is to set the description as an empty string. Is that the recommended approach?

Answer 1

You're right: you cannot totally remove the attribute from an object with a partialUpdateObject operation. As a work-around you can set it to null , maybe that's enough for your use-case?

Answer 2

If you really want to delete the field you can :

• Get your object with the search function
• Store all fields values
• Update (not partial update) your object without passing the field you want to delete