Bulk delete

⚙Developers
1

Dear friends,
I have a document where I refresh data at various times. Basically I want to delete all the contents of a file and then add data into it.

To accomplish this, I have to get a list of all nodes in the document and then though the API issue a delete command for each node.

I tried deleting the ‘root’ node, hoping it would delete all children, but that didn’t work.

Is there another approach to a bulk delete (so one command, as opposed to many delete action steps in the API)

Thanks,
Chris

2

You can’t delete root, but you can delete each child item of root (instead of every node) and it will delete everything.

3

@Shida thank you for quick response. Yes this is what I found. Just looking for ways to cut api calls (request call limits :-))

4

You can issue all the delete in a single call, no?

5

Yes I do it in a single call after retrieving the doc. But I am assuming that each action (Delete or insert) goes against the api request limits, even though its done in one call.

6

Ah I see what you mean. Sorry we don’t have a way right now - hopefully there isn’t many items in your root level (the burst capacity is 500).

7

If I understand this burst capacity basically means a max of 500 changes in a minute time frame?

This is very much enough.

I have one scenario where I might have to write code to handle for large change operations. I want to sync some small databases as references (probably not more than 400 to 600 inserts max, but if I have to remove what was written, then I will exceed 500).

Do I understand this right?

8

500 top-level nodes shouldn’t be that common. If you delete a top level item, all child items are removed and it counts as 1 operation.