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Delete document

Introduced 1.0

If you no longer need a document in your index, you can use the delete document API operation to delete it.

Path and HTTP methods

DELETE /<index>/_doc/<_id>

Path parameters

Parameter Type Description Required
<index> String The index to delete from. Yes
<_id> String The ID of the document to delete. Yes

Query parameters

Parameter Type Description Required
if_seq_no Integer Only perform the delete operation if the document’s version number matches the specified number. No
if_primary_term Integer Only perform the delete operation if the document has the specified primary term. No
refresh Enum If true, OpenSearch refreshes shards to make the delete operation available to search results. Valid options are true, false, and wait_for, which tells OpenSearch to wait for a refresh before executing the operation. Default is false. No
routing String Value used to route the operation to a specific shard. No
timeout Time How long to wait for a response from the cluster. Default is 1m. No
version Integer The version of the document to delete, which must match the last updated version of the document. No
version_type Enum Retrieves a specifically typed document. Available options are external (retrieve the document if the specified version number is greater than the document’s current version) and external_gte (retrieve the document if the specified version number is greater than or equal to the document’s current version). For example, to delete version 3 of a document, use /_doc/1?version=3&version_type=external. No
wait_for_active_shards String The number of active shards that must be available before OpenSearch processes the delete request. Default is 1 (only the primary shard). Set to all or a positive integer. Values greater than 1 require replicas. For example, if you specify a value of 3, the index must have two replicas distributed across two additional nodes for the operation to succeed. No

Example request

DELETE /sample-index1/_doc/1

Example response

{
  "_index": "sample-index1",
  "_id": "1",
  "_version": 2,
  "result": "deleted",
  "_shards": {
    "total": 2,
    "successful": 2,
    "failed": 0
  },
  "_seq_no": 1,
  "_primary_term": 15
}

Response body fields

Field Description
_index The name of the index.
_id The document’s ID.
_version The document’s version.
_result The result of the delete operation.
_shards Detailed information about the cluster’s shards.
total The total number of shards.
successful The number of shards OpenSearch successfully deleted the document from.
failed The number of shards OpenSearch failed to delete the document from.
_seq_no The sequence number assigned when the document was indexed.
_primary_term The primary term assigned when the document was indexed.
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