Getting Started with SQLedit

This functionality is in technical preview and may be changed or removed in a future release. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

To start using Elasticsearch SQL, create an index with some data to experiment with:

PUT /library/book/_bulk?refresh
{"index":{"_id": "Leviathan Wakes"}}
{"name": "Leviathan Wakes", "author": "James S.A. Corey", "release_date": "2011-06-02", "page_count": 561}
{"index":{"_id": "Hyperion"}}
{"name": "Hyperion", "author": "Dan Simmons", "release_date": "1989-05-26", "page_count": 482}
{"index":{"_id": "Dune"}}
{"name": "Dune", "author": "Frank Herbert", "release_date": "1965-06-01", "page_count": 604}

And now you can execute SQL using the SQL REST API right away:

POST /_xpack/sql?format=txt
{
    "query": "SELECT * FROM library WHERE release_date < '2000-01-01'"
}

Which should return something along the lines of:

    author     |     name      |  page_count   | release_date
---------------+---------------+---------------+------------------------
Dan Simmons    |Hyperion       |482            |1989-05-26T00:00:00.000Z
Frank Herbert  |Dune           |604            |1965-06-01T00:00:00.000Z

You can also use the SQL CLI. There is a script to start it shipped in x-pack’s bin directory:

$ ./bin/elasticsearch-sql-cli

From there you can run the same query:

sql> SELECT * FROM library WHERE release_date < '2000-01-01';
    author     |     name      |  page_count   | release_date
---------------+---------------+---------------+------------------------
Dan Simmons    |Hyperion       |482            |1989-05-26T00:00:00.000Z
Frank Herbert  |Dune           |604            |1965-06-01T00:00:00.000Z