HTTP interface for TTL (time-to-live) indexes

Create a TTL index

POST /_db/{database-name}/_api/index

Creates a time-to-live (TTL) index for the collection collection-name if it does not already exist.

Path Parameters

database-name* string
The name of the database.

Query Parameters

collection* string
The collection name.

HTTP Headers

Request Body application/json object

expireAfter* number
The time interval (in seconds) from the point in time stored in the fields attribute after which the documents count as expired. Can be set to 0 to let documents expire as soon as the server time passes the point in time stored in the document attribute, or to a higher number to delay the expiration.
fields* array of strings
A list with exactly one attribute path.
inBackground boolean (default: false)
Set this option to true to keep the collection/shards available for write operations by not using an exclusive write lock for the duration of the index creation.
name string
An easy-to-remember name for the index to look it up or refer to it in index hints. Index names are subject to the same character restrictions as collection names. If omitted, a name is auto-generated so that it is unique with respect to the collection, e.g. idx_832910498.
type* string
Must be equal to "ttl".

Responses

200 OK
The index exists already.
201 Created
The index is created as there is no such existing index.
400 Bad Request
There is already a TTL index for the collection but there can only be one.
404 Not Found
The collection is unknown.

Examples

Creating a TTL index

curl -X POST --header 'accept: application/json' --data-binary @- --dump - 'http://localhost:8529/_api/index?collection=sessions' <<'EOF'
{
  "type": "ttl",
  "expireAfter": 3600,
  "fields": [
    "createdAt"
  ]
}
EOF

Show output

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
content-type: application/json
cache-control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0, max-age=0, s-maxage=0
connection: Keep-Alive
content-length: 205
content-security-policy: frame-ancestors 'self'; form-action 'self';
expires: 0
pragma: no-cache
server: ArangoDB
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000 ; includeSubDomains
x-arango-queue-time-seconds: 0.000000
x-content-type-options: nosniff

{ 
  "estimates" : false, 
  "expireAfter" : 3600, 
  "fields" : [ 
    "createdAt" 
  ], 
  "id" : "sessions/74180", 
  "isNewlyCreated" : true, 
  "name" : "idx_1847138859003936768", 
  "sparse" : true, 
  "type" : "ttl", 
  "unique" : false, 
  "code" : 201, 
  "error" : false 
}