Partially update objects

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Required API Key: any key with the addObject ACL

Method signature
$index->partialUpdateObjects(array objects)
$index->partialUpdateObjects(array objects, [
  'createIfNotExists' => createIfNotExists
  // + any requestOptions
])

// Update a single record
$index->partialUpdateObject(array object)
$index->partialUpdateObject(array object, [
  'createIfNotExists' => bool
  // + any requestOptions
])

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About this method

Update one or more attributes of records.

Use this method to add or update attributes of one or more records, without replacing the whole record.

  • If you provide an objectID that exists in your index, this method adds or updates the attributes of that record, without affecting the other attributes. To replace whole records, use the saveObjects method instead.

  • If you provide an objectID that doesn’t exist in your index, this method creates a new record unless the createIfNotExists parameter is false.

  • If you call this method on an index that doesn’t exist yet, this method creates a new index.

  • You can’t partially update nested attributes. If you specify a nested attribute, this method replaces the first-level ancestor. To update nested attributes, use the saveObjects method. To retrieve the record’s data, use the getObjects method.

When updating large numbers of records, be aware of the rate limitations on these processes and the impact on your analytics data.

Built-in operations

To update an attribute without pushing the entire record, you can use these built-in operations. These operations can be helpful if you don’t have access to your initial data.

  • Increment: increment a numeric attribute
  • Decrement: decrement a numeric attribute
  • Add: append a number or string element to an array attribute
  • Remove: remove all matching number or string elements from an array attribute made of numbers or strings
  • AddUnique: add a number or string element to an array attribute made of numbers or strings only if it’s not already present
  • IncrementFrom: increment a numeric integer attribute only if the provided value matches the current value, and otherwise ignore the whole object update. For example, if you pass an IncrementFrom value of 2 for the version attribute, but the current value of the attribute is 1, the engine ignores the update. If the object doesn’t exist, the engine only creates it if you pass an IncrementFrom value of 0.
  • IncrementSet : increment a numeric integer attribute only if the provided value is greater than the current value, and otherwise ignore the whole object update. For example, if you pass an IncrementSet value of 2 for the version attribute, and the current value of the attribute is 1, the engine updates the object. If the object doesn’t exist yet, the engine only creates it if you pass an IncrementSet value that’s greater than 0.

For Remove and AddUnique: the operation will be silently ignored if the array attribute has any nested object or array.

You can specify an operation by providing an object with the attribute to update as the key and its value being an object with the following properties:

  • _operation: the operation to apply on the attribute
  • value: the right-hand side argument to the operation, for example, increment or decrement step, value to add or remove

Only the IncrementFrom and IncrementSet operations guarantee idempotent record updates. The other built-in operations aren’t idempotent and can cause unexpected side-effects, unless you use them in combination with the idempotent operations. For example, if you’re using the Increment or Decrement operations in a concurrent or multi-threaded environment, you may trigger it more than once and end up with wrong data in your records.

To update a single record, use the partialUpdateObject method.

Examples

Read the Algolia CLI documentation for more information.

Partially update multiple records

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$index->partialUpdateObjects(
    [
        [
            'objectID'  => 'myID1',
            'firstname' => 'Jimmie'
        ],
        [
            'objectID'  => 'myID2',
            'firstname' => 'Warren'
        ]
    ]
);

Partially update multiple records and send extra HTTP headers

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$objects = [/* objects */];

$res = $index->partialUpdateObjects($objects, [
  'createIfNotExists' => true,
  'X-Forwarded-For' => '94.228.178.246'
]);

Update one attribute of an existing record

This example updates only the city attribute of a single record

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$index->partialUpdateObject(
  [
    'city'     => 'San Francisco',
    'objectID' => 'myID'
  ]
);

Add a new attribute to an existing record

This example adds a state attribute to a single record.

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$index->partialUpdateObject(
  [
    'state'    => 'California',
    'objectID' => 'myID'
  ]
);

Increment a numeric attribute

This example updates the count attribute and increments its value.

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$index->partialUpdateObject(
  [
    'count'    => [
      '_operation' => 'Increment',
      'value'      => 2
    ],
    'objectID' => 'myID'
  ]
);

Add a new value to an existing array attribute

This example updates the _tags attribute and adds an item to the list.

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$index->partialUpdateObject(
  [
    '_tags'    => [
      '_operation' => 'AddUnique',
      'value'      => 'public'
    ],
    'objectID' => 'myID'
  ]
);

Update only if the value matches a numeric attribute

This example updates the version attribute using the IncrementFrom built-in operation. This ensures that this attribute is only incremented if the provided value matches.

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$index->partialUpdateObject(
  [
    'version'    => [
      '_operation' => 'IncrementFrom',
      'value'      => 2
    ],
    'objectID' => 'myID'
  ]
);

Update only if the value is greater than a numeric attribute

This example updates the lastmodified attribute using the IncrementSet built-in operation to ensure that only the highest increment value is set.

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$index->partialUpdateObject(
  [
    'lastmodified'    => [
      '_operation' => 'IncrementSet',
      'value'      => 1593431913
    ],
    'objectID' => 'myID'
  ]
);

Parameters

objects
type: list of object
Required

List of records to update.

objectID
type: integer
Required

Object ID of a record to update.

createIfNotExists
type: boolean
default: true
Optional

If true, updating a record with a non-existing objectID creates a new record with the specified attributes. If false (the objectID doesn’t exist), the update will be ignored. This means that no error will be returned, and the record won’t be updated.

In the Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, PHP, and .NET API clients, this parameter defaults to false.

requestOptions
type: key-value pairs
default: ""
Optional

A mapping of request options to send along with the query.

objects âž” object

An object that matches some or all records.

The object needs to contain an objectID. If you provide an objectID that doesn’t exist, the behavior of this method depends on the createIfNotExists parameter.

Response

This section shows the JSON response returned by the API. Each API client encapsulates this response inside objects specific to the programming language, so that the actual response might be different. You can view the response by using the getLogs method. Don’t rely on the order of attributes in the response, as JSON doesn’t guarantee the ordering of keys in objects.

JSON format

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{
  "objectIDs": [
    "myObjectID1",
    "myObjectID2"
  ],
  "taskID": 678,
}
Field Description
objectIDs
list

List of object IDs of the records that should be updated.

taskID
integer

The taskID used with the waitTask method.

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