Define timeout for a "count"

It seems like it is possible to pass a timeout argument to a search:

 es.search(
    index=my_index,
    doc_type='actions',
    timeout = '900',
    body=
    {
        "size": 0,
        "query": {
            "constant_score": {
                "filter": {
                    "terms": {
                        "ID":  IDs
                    }
                },
                "boost": 1.2
            }
        }
    })

It is then possible to count the number of documents by looking at the ['hits']['total']. A more direct approach would be to use the Elasticsearch.count. However, when doing so it is not possible to pass a timeout argument. A workaround is to use a search with the search_type set to count.

Doesn’t it make sense to have also for the count the possibility to set a timeout?

[honzakral]

global parameter timeout sets the timeout on the socket, per-request parameter request_timeout does the same. The reason it’s named differently is because in some cases the APIs already have a parameter named timeout that does something else (internal timeout within elasticsearch).

I tried to document this in the docs: http://elasticsearch-py.readthedocs.org/en/master/api.html#timeout

please let me know if that’s confusing or what could be clearer there, thanks!

[honzakral]

The default is 10 seconds for the global timeout (mentioned in [0]) and if request_timeout is not specified the global timeout will be used.

Yes, the search API is an example of an API that allows for the timeout parameter that will just be passed to elasticsearch.

0 - http://elasticsearch-py.readthedocs.org/en/master/connection.html#connection