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