Update documents (Python)

Finds documents in a collection using filter clauses, and then updates properties in those documents. Optionally, if no document matches the filter, inserts a new document.

This method does not support sort parameters, including vector search. If you want to use sort parameters to find documents, use the method to find documents instead. Then, use the method to update a single document to update the found documents by ID.

Ready to write code? See the examples for this method to get started. If you are new to the Data API, check out the quickstart.

Result

Updates documents that match the specified parameters and returns a CollectionUpdateResult object that includes details about the operation, including the number of documents that were found and the number of documents that were modified.

Example response:

CollectionUpdateResult(update_info={'n': 3, 'updatedExisting': True, 'ok': 1.0, 'nModified': 2}, raw_results=...)

If specified, the method inserts a new document if no document matches the filter.

Example response if a new document was inserted:

CollectionUpdateResult(update_info={'n': 1, 'updatedExisting': False, 'ok': 1.0, 'nModified': 0, 'upserted': '91838621-160d-4a35-8386-21160d2a3580'}, raw_results=...)

Parameters

Use the update_many method, which belongs to the astrapy.Collection class.

Method signature
update_many(
  filter: Dict[str, Any],
  update: Dict[str, Any],
  *,
  upsert: bool,
  general_method_timeout_ms: int,
  request_timeout_ms: int,
  timeout_ms: int,
) -> CollectionUpdateResult:
Name Type Summary

filter

Dict[str, Any]

An object that defines filter criteria using the Data API filter syntax. The method only finds documents that match the filter criteria. Filters can improve performance by reducing the number of documents that the Data API processes.

You must use & to escape any . or & in field names in the filter clause. You cannot use & to escape any other characters. For more information, see Work with . and & in field names (Python).

For a list of available filter operators and more examples, see Filter operators for collections (Python).

Filters can use only indexed fields. If you apply selective indexing when you create a collection, you cannot reference non-indexed fields in a filter.

update

Dict[str, Any]

An object that defines the updates using Data API operators.

For a list of available operators and more examples, see Update operators for collections (Python).

You must use & to escape any . or & in field names in the update clause. You cannot use & to escape any other characters. For more information, see Work with . and & in field names (Python).

upsert

bool

Optional. Whether to insert a new document if no document matches the filter criteria.

general_method_timeout_ms

int

Optional. The maximum time, in milliseconds, that the whole operation, which might involve multiple HTTP requests, can take.

Default: The default value for the collection. This default is 30 seconds unless you specified a different default when you initialized the Collection or DataAPIClient object. For more information, see Timeout options.

request_timeout_ms

int

Optional. The maximum time, in milliseconds, that the client should wait for each underlying HTTP request.

Default: The default value for the collection. This default is 10 seconds unless you specified a different default when you initialized the Collection or DataAPIClient object. For more information, see Timeout options.

timeout_ms

int

Optional. An alias for general_method_timeout_ms.

Examples

The following examples demonstrate how to update documents in a collection.

Update documents that match a filter

You can use a filter to find documents that match specific criteria. For example, you can find documents with an is_checked_out value of false and a number_of_pages value less than 300.

For a list of available filter operators and more examples, see Filter operators for collections (Python).

Filters can use only indexed fields. If you apply selective indexing when you create a collection, you cannot reference non-indexed fields in a filter.

The following example uses untyped documents or rows, but you can define a client-side type for your collection to help statically catch errors. For examples, see Typing support.

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment

# Get an existing collection
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
    keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME",
)
collection = database.get_collection("COLLECTION_NAME")

# Update documents
result = collection.update_many(
    {
        "$and": [
            {"is_checked_out": False},
            {"number_of_pages": {"$lt": 300}},
        ]
    },
    {"$set": {"color": "blue"}},
)

print(result)

Update multiple properties

You can combine multiple operators and properties in a single call. For the full list of operators, see Update operators for collections (Python).

The following example uses untyped documents or rows, but you can define a client-side type for your collection to help statically catch errors. For examples, see Typing support.

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment

# Get an existing collection
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
    keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME",
)
collection = database.get_collection("COLLECTION_NAME")

# Update documents
result = collection.update_many(
    {
        "$and": [
            {"is_checked_out": False},
            {"number_of_pages": {"$lt": 300}},
        ]
    },
    {
        "$set": {
            "color": "blue",
            "classes": ["biology", "algebra", "swimming"],
        },
        "$unset": {"phone": ""},
        "$inc": {"age": 1},
    },
)

print(result)

Update nested properties

To update a nested property, use dot notation. For example, field.subfield.subsubfield.

To update an item in a list, specify a numeric index. For example, listProperty.3.

The following example uses untyped documents or rows, but you can define a client-side type for your collection to help statically catch errors. For examples, see Typing support.

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment

# Get an existing collection
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
    keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME",
)
collection = database.get_collection("COLLECTION_NAME")

# Update documents
result = collection.update_many(
    {
        "$and": [
            {"is_checked_out": False},
            {"number_of_pages": {"$lt": 300}},
        ]
    },
    {
        "$set": {
            "color": "blue",
            "address.city": "Austin",
            "classes.2": "biology",
        }
    },
)

print(result)

Insert a new document if no matching document exists

You can use upsert to insert a new document if no document matches the filter criteria.

In addition to any fields you explicitly set in the update parameter, the new document also includes any top-level equality conditions from the filter parameter. Equality conditions that are nested within $and from the filter parameter are not included. If a field is defined both in the filter and in the update, the explicitly set value takes precedence.

The following example uses untyped documents or rows, but you can define a client-side type for your collection to help statically catch errors. For examples, see Typing support.

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment

# Get an existing collection
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
    keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME",
)
collection = database.get_collection("COLLECTION_NAME")

# Update documents
result = collection.update_many(
    {
        "$and": [
            {"is_checked_out": False},
            {"number_of_pages": {"$lt": 300}},
        ]
    },
    {"$set": {"color": "blue"}},
    upsert=True,
)

print(result)

You can also use the setOnInsert operator to specify additional fields to set if a new document is created:

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment

# Get an existing collection
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
    keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME",
)
collection = database.get_collection("COLLECTION_NAME")

# Update documents
result = collection.update_many(
    {
        "$and": [
            {"is_checked_out": False},
            {"number_of_pages": {"$lt": 300}},
        ]
    },
    {
        "$set": {"color": "blue"},
        "$setOnInsert": {"customer.name": "James"},
    },
    upsert=True,
)

print(result)

Update more than 20 documents

The client automatically issues multiple Data API HTTP requests to update all documents that match your filter.

Work with . and & in field names

You must use & to escape any . or & in field names when the field is used in a filter, sort, projection, update, or indexing clause. Dot notation, which is used to reference nested fields, should not be escaped. For more information, see Work with . and & in field names (Python).

For example, in the following document, you would use escaping like this: areas.r&&d, costs.price&.usd, and costs.price&.cad.

{
  "areas": {
    "r&d": true,
    "design": false
  },
  "costs": {
    "price.usd": 100,
    "price.cad": 90
  }
}

The following example uses untyped documents or rows, but you can define a client-side type for your collection to help statically catch errors. For examples, see Typing support.

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment

# Get an existing collection
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
    keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME",
)
collection = database.get_collection("COLLECTION_NAME")

# Find a document
result = collection.update_many(
    {
        "$and": [
            {"areas.r&&d": False},
            {"costs.price&.usd": {"$lt": 300}},
        ]
    },
    {"$set": {"areas.r&&d": True, "costs.price&.usd": 310}},
)

print(result)

You can also use the escape_field_names function provided by the client:

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment
from astrapy.utils.document_paths import escape_field_names

# Get an existing collection
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
    keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME",
)
collection = database.get_collection("COLLECTION_NAME")

# Find a document
result = collection.update_many(
    {
        "$and": [
            {escape_field_names("areas", "r&d"): False},
            {escape_field_names("costs", "price.usd"): {"$lt": 300}},
        ]
    },
    {
        "$set": {
            escape_field_names("areas", "r&d"): True,
            escape_field_names("costs", "price.usd"): 310,
        }
    },
)

print(result)

Client reference

For more information, see the client reference.

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