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Use Aiven for OpenSearch® with cURL

Connect to your Aiven for OpenSearch® service with cURL.

Variables​

These are the placeholders you will need to replace in the code samples:

VariableDescription
OPENSEARCH_URIService URI, including username and password, available from the service overview page

Connect to OpenSearch​

Connect to your service with:

curl OPENSEARCH_URI

If the connection is successful, one of the nodes in your cluster will respond with some information including:

  • name The node name you are connected to (this will be the name of your service, with the node identifier suffix)
  • version The version information includes both the distribution and the version of the distribution that is running

Manage indices​

OpenSearch groups data into an index rather than a table.

Create an index​

Create an index by making a PUT call to it:

curl -X PUT OPENSEARCH_URI/shopping-list

The response should have status 200 and the body data will have acknowledged set to true.

If you already know something about the fields that will be in the documents you'll store, you can create an index with mappings to describe those known fields:

curl -X PUT -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
OPENSEARCH_URI/shopping-list \
-d '{
    "mappings": {
        "properties": {
            "item": { "type": "keyword"  },
            "quantity": { "type": "integer" }
        }
    }
 }'

This example creates the shopping list example but adds information to help the indexer know how to handle the expected fields.

List of indices​

To list the indices do:

curl OPENSEARCH_URI/_cat/indices

Add an item to the index​

OpenSearch is a document database so there is no enforced schema structure for the data you store. To add an item, POST the JSON data that should be stored:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
OPENSEARCH_URI/shopping-list/_doc \
-d '{
    "item": "apple",
    "quantity": 2
    }'

Other data fields don't need to match in format:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
OPENSEARCH_URI/shopping-list/_doc \
-d '{
    "item": "bucket",
    "color": "blue",
    "quantity": 5,
    "notes": "the one with the metal handle"
    }'

These documents are stored in the shopping-list index.

Search or retrieve data​

OpenSearch is designed to make stored information easy to search and access (the clue is in the name). Here are some examples to get you started, and you can refer to the main OpenSearch Documentation for more information.

Search all items​

OpenSearch has support for excellent search querying, but if you want to get everything:

curl OPENSEARCH_URI/_search

Search results include some key fields to look at when you try this example:

  • hits holds the main payload of the response
  • hits.hits is a collection of results that matched the query. This includes:
    • _index the index that the document was stored in
    • _score how good a match the document is (on a scale of 0 to 1)
    • _source the document that matched

For the most simple search to match a string, you can use:

curl OPENSEARCH_URI/_search?q=apple

Advanced search options​

For more advanced searches, you can send a more detailed payload to specify which fields to search among other options:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
OPENSEARCH_URI/_search \
-d '{
    "query": {
        "multi_match" : {
            "query" : "apple",
            "fields" : ["item", "notes"]
        }
    }
}'