Chunking

In scenarios where you’re dealing with large datasets, Laravel’s chunk method becomes invaluable, allowing you to process large sets of results in manageable portions. This approach is particularly useful in memory-intensive operations, such as batch updates or exports, where loading the entire dataset into memory at once could lead to performance issues. The Laravel-Elasticsearch integration adapts this familiar concept from Laravel Eloquent ORM to work within the context of Elasticsearch data.

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Basic Chunking

The chunk method breaks down the query results into smaller “chunks” of a specified size, executing a callback function for each chunk. This allows you to operate on a subset of the results at a time, reducing memory usage.

Product::chunk(1000, function ($products) {
    foreach ($products as $product) {
        // Example operation: Increase price by 10%
        $product->price *= 1.1;
        $product->save();
    }
});

Explain

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Chunking, Under the Hood - PIT

• The chunking method uses Elasticsearch’s Point In Time (PIT) to iterate over the results. This allows for more efficient pagination and avoids potential issues that may arise when records change during the operation.
• The default ordering will be _shard_doc in ascending order. You can introduce your own ordering by using the orderBy method before calling chunk however, this may affect the grouping of results.
• Once the chunking operation is complete, the PIT will be automatically closed.
• The default keepAlive duration is 5 minutes but will be closed automatically if the operation completes before the duration elapses.

If 5 minutes is not enough for your operation, you can increase the keepAlive duration by setting the keepAlive parameter after your callback in the chunk method. Example:

Product::chunk(1000, function ($products) {
    foreach ($products as $product) {
        // Example operation: Increase price by 10%
        $product->price *= 1.1;
        $product->save();
    }
},'20m');

Explain

keepAlive parameter uses Elasticsearch’s time units, such as 1m for 1 minute, 1h for 1 hour, and 1d for 1 day.

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Chunk By Id

chunkById($count, callable $callback, $column = '_id', $alias = null, $keepAlive = '5m')

The chunkById() method is a specialized version of the chunk method that paginates results based on a unique identifier ensuring that each chunk contains unique records.

Any ordering clauses will be ignored as this method uses the unique identifier to paginate the results.

If no identifier is provided (default value _id), the chunk will use PIT ordered by _shard_doc in ascending order (irrespective of an order clause if present).

Product::chunkById(1000, function ($products) {
    foreach ($products as $product) {
        // Example operation: Increase price by 10%
        $product->price *= 1.1;
        $product->save();
    }
}, 'product_sku.keyword');

Explain

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