Add ability to clear all documents from a collection without dropping the collection and schema

[shijithkjayan]

Hi,
I would like to request a feature to clear all documents from a collection without dropping the collection and its schema. This can be useful in scenarios where we want to reset the data in a collection but retain the schema for future use.

[shijithkjayan]

cc: @njausteve

[jaeyson]

Hi @shijithkjayan good idea. I'll circle back in couple of days and will let you know the progress. I'm replying here just to acknowledge the request. Thanks!

[jaeyson]

Hi @shijithkjayan. I'm not sure if you saw this thread: typesense/typesense#1613

TLDR on that thread:

An alternative could be to simply delete the collection and recreate it

This is indeed the workaround for now.

workaround

via docs

To delete multiple documents by ID, you can use filter_by=id: [id1, id2, id3].

To delete all documents in a collection, you can use a filter that matches all documents in your collection. For eg, if you have an int32 field called popularity in your documents, you can use filter_by=popularity:>0 to delete all documents. Or if you have a bool field called in_stock in your documents, you can use filter_by=in_stock:[true,false] to delete all documents.

I may have to update the Document module regarding this feature, since the docs gave us some idea how to match all documents in a collection leaving it up to developer's implementation.

What do you think?

[shijithkjayan]

Hi @jaeyson its indeed what I am doing right now. I drop a collection and then recreate it without any of the documents. I see that typesense itself doesn't support clearing an index and is suggesting a workaround. I am just wondering if you could add the logic for this in the library so those who use your library don't have to do it.

And yes, I like the idea of using a filter to delete multiple documents together. Would be great if you could incorporate that also.

[jaeyson]

Hi @shijithkjayan kindly check this PR #33, specifically test/document_test.exs. Let me know your thoughts on this.