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Getting Information about a Collection

Return information about a collection

returns a collection

GET /_api/collection/{collection-name}

Accessing collections by their numeric ID is deprecated from version 3.4.0 on. You should reference them via their names instead.

Path Parameters

  • collection-name (required): The name of the collection.

The result is an object describing the collection with the following attributes:

  • id: The identifier of the collection.

  • name: The name of the collection.

  • status: The status of the collection as number.
  • 1: new born collection
  • 2: unloaded
  • 3: loaded
  • 4: in the process of being unloaded
  • 5: deleted
  • 6: loading

Every other status indicates a corrupted collection.

  • type: The type of the collection as number.
    • 2: document collection (normal case)
    • 3: edges collection
  • isSystem: If true then the collection is a system collection.

Return codes

  • 404: If the collection-name is unknown, then a HTTP 404 is returned.

Read properties of a collection

reads the properties of the specified collection

GET /_api/collection/{collection-name}/properties

Accessing collections by their numeric ID is deprecated from version 3.4.0 on. You should reference them via their names instead.

Path Parameters

  • collection-name (required): The name of the collection.

In addition to the above, the result will always contain the waitForSync attribute, and the doCompact, journalSize, and isVolatile attributes for the MMFiles storage engine. This is achieved by forcing a load of the underlying collection.

  • waitForSync: If true then creating, changing or removing documents will wait until the data has been synchronized to disk.

  • doCompact: Whether or not the collection will be compacted. This option is only present for the MMFiles storage engine.

  • journalSize: The maximal size setting for journals / datafiles in bytes. This option is only present for the MMFiles storage engine.

  • keyOptions: JSON object which contains key generation options:
    • type: specifies the type of the key generator. The currently available generators are traditional, autoincrement, uuid and padded.
    • allowUserKeys: if set to true, then it is allowed to supply own key values in the _key attribute of a document. If set to false, then the key generator is solely responsible for generating keys and supplying own key values in the _key attribute of documents is considered an error.
  • isVolatile: If true then the collection data will be kept in memory only and ArangoDB will not write or sync the data to disk. This option is only present for the MMFiles storage engine.

In a cluster setup, the result will also contain the following attributes:

  • numberOfShards: the number of shards of the collection.

  • shardKeys: contains the names of document attributes that are used to determine the target shard for documents.

  • replicationFactor: contains how many copies of each shard are kept on different DBServers.

  • shardingStrategy: the sharding strategy selected for the collection.

Return codes

  • 400: If the collection-name is missing, then a HTTP 400 is returned.

  • 404: If the collection-name is unknown, then a HTTP 404 is returned.

Examples

Using an identifier:

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/68747/properties

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/68747/properties
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Using a name:

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/products/properties

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/products/properties
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Return number of documents in a collection

Counts the documents in a collection

GET /_api/collection/{collection-name}/count

Accessing collections by their numeric ID is deprecated from version 3.4.0 on. You should reference them via their names instead.

Path Parameters

  • collection-name (required): The name of the collection.

In addition to the above, the result also contains the number of documents. Note that this will always load the collection into memory.

  • count: The number of documents inside the collection.

Return codes

  • 400: If the collection-name is missing, then a HTTP 400 is returned.

  • 404: If the collection-name is unknown, then a HTTP 404 is returned.

Examples

Requesting the number of documents:

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/products/count

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/products/count
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Return statistics for a collection

Fetch the statistics of a collection

GET /_api/collection/{collection-name}/figures

Accessing collections by their numeric ID is deprecated from version 3.4.0 on. You should reference them via their names instead.

Path Parameters

  • collection-name (required): The name of the collection.

In addition to the above, the result also contains the number of documents and additional statistical information about the collection. Note: This will always load the collection into memory.

Note: collection data that is stored in the write-ahead log only is not reported in the results. When the write-ahead log is collected, documents might be added to journals and datafiles of the collection, which may modify the figures of the collection.

Additionally, the filesizes of collection and index parameter JSON files are not reported. These files should normally have a size of a few bytes each. Please also note that the fileSize values are reported in bytes and reflect the logical file sizes. Some filesystems may use optimizations (e.g. sparse files) so that the actual physical file size is somewhat different. Directories and sub-directories may also require space in the file system, but this space is not reported in the fileSize results.

That means that the figures reported do not reflect the actual disk usage of the collection with 100% accuracy. The actual disk usage of a collection is normally slightly higher than the sum of the reported fileSize values. Still the sum of the fileSize values can still be used as a lower bound approximation of the disk usage.

HTTP 200 Returns information about the collection:

  • count: The number of documents currently present in the collection.

  • figures: metrics of the collection

    • alive: the currently active figures

    • count: The total number of indexes defined for the collection, including the pre-defined indexes (e.g. primary index).

    • size: The total memory allocated for indexes in bytes.

    • dead: the items waiting to be swept away by the cleaner

    • deletion: The total number of deletion markers. Deletion markers only contained in the write-ahead log are not reporting in this figure.

    • datafiles: Metrics regarding the datafiles

    • fileSize: The total filesize of all compactor files (in bytes).

    • journals: Metrics regarding the journal files

    • compactors:
    • readcache:
    • revisions:
    • indexes:

    • lastTick: The tick of the last marker that was stored in a journal of the collection. This might be 0 if the collection does not yet have a journal.

    • uncollectedLogfileEntries: The number of markers in the write-ahead log for this collection that have not been transferred to journals or datafiles.

    • documentReferences: The number of references to documents in datafiles that JavaScript code currently holds. This information can be used for debugging compaction and unload issues.

    • waitingFor: An optional string value that contains information about which object type is at the head of the collection’s cleanup queue. This information can be used for debugging compaction and unload issues.

    • compactionStatus:

    • message: The action that was performed when the compaction was last run for the collection. This information can be used for debugging compaction issues.

    • time: The point in time the compaction for the collection was last executed. This information can be used for debugging compaction issues.

  • journalSize: The maximal size of a journal or datafile in bytes.

  • 400: If the collection-name is missing, then a HTTP 400 is returned.

  • 404: If the collection-name is unknown, then a HTTP 404 is returned.

Examples

Using an identifier and requesting the figures of the collection (MMFiles storage engine):

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/products/figures

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/products/figures
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Using an identifier and requesting the figures of the collection (RocksDB storage engine):

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/products/figures

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/products/figures
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Return collection revision id

Retrieve the collections revision id

GET /_api/collection/{collection-name}/revision

Accessing collections by their numeric ID is deprecated from version 3.4.0 on. You should reference them via their names instead.

Path Parameters

  • collection-name (required): The name of the collection.

In addition to the above, the result will also contain the collection’s revision id. The revision id is a server-generated string that clients can use to check whether data in a collection has changed since the last revision check.

  • revision: The collection revision id as a string.

Return codes

  • 400: If the collection-name is missing, then a HTTP 400 is returned.

  • 404: If the collection-name is unknown, then a HTTP 404 is returned.

Examples

Retrieving the revision of a collection

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/products/revision

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/products/revision
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Return checksum for the collection

returns a checksum for the specified collection

GET /_api/collection/{collection-name}/checksum

Accessing collections by their numeric ID is deprecated from version 3.4.0 on. You should reference them via their names instead.

Path Parameters

  • collection-name (required): The name of the collection.

Query Parameters

  • withRevisions (optional): Whether or not to include document revision ids in the checksum calculation.

  • withData (optional): Whether or not to include document body data in the checksum calculation.

Will calculate a checksum of the meta-data (keys and optionally revision ids) and optionally the document data in the collection.

The checksum can be used to compare if two collections on different ArangoDB instances contain the same contents. The current revision of the collection is returned too so one can make sure the checksums are calculated for the same state of data.

By default, the checksum will only be calculated on the _key system attribute of the documents contained in the collection. For edge collections, the system attributes _from and _to will also be included in the calculation.

By setting the optional query parameter withRevisions to true, then revision ids (_rev system attributes) are included in the checksumming.

By providing the optional query parameter withData with a value of true, the user-defined document attributes will be included in the calculation too. Note: Including user-defined attributes will make the checksumming slower.

The response is a JSON object with the following attributes:

  • checksum: The calculated checksum as a number.

  • revision: The collection revision id as a string.

Note: this method is not available in a cluster.

Return codes

  • 400: If the collection-name is missing, then a HTTP 400 is returned.

  • 404: If the collection-name is unknown, then a HTTP 404 is returned.

Examples

Retrieving the checksum of a collection:

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/products/checksum

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/products/checksum
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

Retrieving the checksum of a collection including the collection data, but not the revisions:

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection/products/checksum?withRevisions=false&withData=true

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
location: /_api/collection/products/checksum
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body

reads all collections

returns all collections

GET /_api/collection

Accessing collections by their numeric ID is deprecated from version 3.4.0 on. You should reference them via their names instead.

Query Parameters

  • excludeSystem (optional): Whether or not system collections should be excluded from the result.

Returns an object with an attribute collections containing an array of all collection descriptions. The same information is also available in the names as an object with the collection names as keys.

By providing the optional query parameter excludeSystem with a value of true, all system collections will be excluded from the response.

Return codes

  • 200: The list of collections

Examples

Return information about all collections:

shell> curl --header 'accept: application/json' --dump - http://localhost:8529/_api/collection

HTTP/1.1 OK
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
x-content-type-options: nosniff
Show response body
❮  Creating

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