Management Commands

Haystack comes with several management commands to make working with Haystack easier.

clear_index

The clear_index command wipes out your entire search index. Use with caution. In addition to the standard management command options, it accepts the following arguments:

``--noinput``:
    If provided, the interactive prompts are skipped and the index is
    uncerimoniously wiped out.
``--verbosity``:
    Accepted but ignored.
``--using``:
    If provided, determines which connection should be used. Default is
    ``default``.
``--nocommit``:
    If provided, it will pass commit=False to the backend.  This means that the
    update will not become immediately visible and will depend on another explicit commit
    or the backend's commit strategy to complete the update.

By default, this is an INTERACTIVE command and assumes that you do NOT wish to delete the entire index.

Note

The --nocommit argument is only supported by the Solr backend.

Warning

Depending on the backend you’re using, this may simply delete the entire directory, so be sure your HAYSTACK_CONNECTIONS[<alias>]['PATH'] setting is correctly pointed at just the index directory.

update_index

Note

If you use the --start/--end flags on this command, you’ll need to install dateutil to handle the datetime parsing.

The update_index command will freshen all of the content in your index. It iterates through all indexed models and updates the records in the index. In addition to the standard management command options, it accepts the following arguments:

``--age``:
    Number of hours back to consider objects new. Useful for nightly
    reindexes (``--age=24``). Requires ``SearchIndexes`` to implement
    the ``get_updated_field`` method. Default is ``None``.
``--start``:
    The start date for indexing within. Can be any dateutil-parsable string,
    recommended to be YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS. Requires ``SearchIndexes`` to
    implement the ``get_updated_field`` method. Default is ``None``.
``--end``:
    The end date for indexing within. Can be any dateutil-parsable string,
    recommended to be YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS. Requires ``SearchIndexes`` to
    implement the ``get_updated_field`` method. Default is ``None``.
``--batch-size``:
    Number of items to index at once. Default is 1000.
``--remove``:
    Remove objects from the index that are no longer present in the
    database.
``--workers``:
    Allows for the use multiple workers to parallelize indexing. Requires
    ``multiprocessing``.
``--verbosity``:
    If provided, dumps out more information about what's being done.

      * ``0`` = No output
      * ``1`` = Minimal output describing what models were indexed
        and how many records.
      * ``2`` = Full output, including everything from ``1`` plus output
        on each batch that is indexed, which is useful when debugging.
``--using``:
    If provided, determines which connection should be used. Default is
    ``default``.
``--nocommit``:
    If provided, it will pass commit=False to the backend.  This means that the
    updates will not become immediately visible and will depend on another explicit commit
    or the backend's commit strategy to complete the update.

Note

The --nocommit argument is only supported by the Solr and Elasticsearch backends.

Examples:

# Update everything.
./manage.py update_index --settings=settings.prod

# Update everything with lots of information about what's going on.
./manage.py update_index --settings=settings.prod --verbosity=2

# Update everything, cleaning up after deleted models.
./manage.py update_index --remove --settings=settings.prod

# Update everything changed in the last 2 hours.
./manage.py update_index --age=2 --settings=settings.prod

# Update everything between Dec. 1, 2011 & Dec 31, 2011
./manage.py update_index --start='2011-12-01T00:00:00' --end='2011-12-31T23:59:59' --settings=settings.prod

# Update just a couple apps.
./manage.py update_index blog auth comments --settings=settings.prod

# Update just a single model (in a complex app).
./manage.py update_index auth.User --settings=settings.prod

# Crazy Go-Nuts University
./manage.py update_index events.Event media news.Story --start='2011-01-01T00:00:00 --remove --using=hotbackup --workers=12 --verbosity=2 --settings=settings.prod

Note

This command ONLY updates records in the index. It does NOT handle deletions unless the --remove flag is provided. You might consider a queue consumer if the memory requirements for --remove don’t fit your needs. Alternatively, you can use the RealtimeSignalProcessor, which will automatically handle deletions.

rebuild_index

A shortcut for clear_index followed by update_index. It accepts any/all of the arguments of the following arguments:

``--age``:
    Number of hours back to consider objects new. Useful for nightly
    reindexes (``--age=24``). Requires ``SearchIndexes`` to implement
    the ``get_updated_field`` method.
``--batch-size``:
    Number of items to index at once. Default is 1000.
``--site``:
    The site object to use when reindexing (like `search_sites.mysite`).
``--noinput``:
    If provided, the interactive prompts are skipped and the index is
    uncerimoniously wiped out.
``--remove``:
    Remove objects from the index that are no longer present in the
    database.
``--verbosity``:
    If provided, dumps out more information about what's being done.

      * ``0`` = No output
      * ``1`` = Minimal output describing what models were indexed
        and how many records.
      * ``2`` = Full output, including everything from ``1`` plus output
        on each batch that is indexed, which is useful when debugging.
``--using``:
    If provided, determines which connection should be used. Default is
    ``default``.
``--nocommit``:
    If provided, it will pass commit=False to the backend.  This means that the
    update will not become immediately visible and will depend on another explicit commit
    or the backend's commit strategy to complete the update.

For when you really, really want a completely rebuilt index.

build_solr_schema

Once all of your SearchIndex classes are in place, this command can be used to generate the XML schema Solr needs to handle the search data. It accepts the following arguments:

``--filename``:
    If provided, directs output to a file instead of stdout.
``--using``:
    If provided, determines which connection should be used. Default is
    ``default``.

Warning

This command does NOT update the schema.xml file for you. You either have to specify a filename flag or have to copy-paste (or redirect) the output to the correct file. Haystack has no way of knowing where your Solr is setup (or if it’s even on the same machine), hence the manual step.

haystack_info

Provides some basic information about how Haystack is setup and what models it is handling. It accepts no arguments. Useful when debugging or when using Haystack-enabled third-party apps.