Deleting documents in Elasticsearch - Step-by-Step Execution

Concept Flow - Deleting documents

Start

↓

Send Delete Request

↓

Check Document Exists?

No→Return Not Found

Yes↓

Delete Document

↓

Return Success Response

↓

End

The flow shows sending a delete request, checking if the document exists, deleting it if found, and returning the result.

Execution Sample

Elasticsearch

DELETE /my_index/_doc/1

# Deletes document with ID 1 from 'my_index'

This command deletes the document with ID 1 from the index named 'my_index'.

Execution Table

Step	Action	Request Sent	Document Exists?	Result	Response
1	Send DELETE request to /my_index/_doc/1	DELETE /my_index/_doc/1	Check if document with ID 1 exists	Yes	Proceed to delete
2	Delete document with ID 1	N/A	N/A	Deleted	200 OK with result 'deleted'
3	Return response	N/A	N/A	Success	{"result":"deleted"}
4	End	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

💡 Document with ID 1 deleted successfully, operation ends.

Variable Tracker

Variable	Start	After Step 1	After Step 2	Final
document_exists	unknown	true	deleted	deleted
response	none	pending	{"result":"deleted"}	{"result":"deleted"}

Key Moments - 2 Insights

What happens if the document does not exist when the delete request is sent?

If the document does not exist, the response will indicate 'not_found' instead of 'deleted'. This is shown in the execution_table step 1 where document existence is checked.

Does the delete request remove the entire index?

No, the delete request targets a single document by its ID. The index remains intact. This is clear from the request path /my_index/_doc/1 which specifies one document.

Visual Quiz - 3 Questions

Look at the execution table, what is the response after the document is deleted?

A {"result":"deleted"}

B {"result":"not_found"}

C 404 Not Found

D 500 Internal Server Error

💡 Hint

Check the Response column at Step 3 in the execution_table.

At which step does the system confirm the document exists before deleting?

A Step 3

B Step 1

C Step 2

D Step 4

💡 Hint

Look at the Document Exists? column in the execution_table.

If the document did not exist, how would the response change?

A Response would be 200 OK with no body

B Response would be {"result":"deleted"}

C Response would be {"result":"not_found"}

D Response would be 500 Internal Server Error

💡 Hint

Refer to key_moments about document existence and response.

Concept Snapshot

Deleting documents in Elasticsearch:
- Use DELETE /index/_doc/document_id
- Checks if document exists
- If yes, deletes and returns {"result":"deleted"}
- If no, returns {"result":"not_found"}
- Does not delete the whole index

Full Transcript

This visual execution shows how deleting a document in Elasticsearch works step-by-step. First, a DELETE request is sent to the document's URL. The system checks if the document exists. If it does, the document is deleted and a success response with {"result":"deleted"} is returned. If the document does not exist, the response indicates {"result":"not_found"}. The index itself remains unchanged. Variables like document_exists and response update as the process runs. This helps beginners see exactly what happens behind the scenes when deleting documents.