Insert a Dynamic into Elastic Document through nest - elasticsearch

Question

var doc = new ESDoc {
Field1 = "test1",
Field2 = 3,
ExtraData = 'dynamic object',
Index = "myindex"
};
ElasticClient.Index(doc, s => s.Index(doc.Index));
This is in essence what I am trying to do. I have a document object, and I am wanting to add to it a dynamic object that allows us to through whatever customer specific data we want in there. I have no need to ever search or do any querying on it, I just need to hold it for CYA issues.
This results in ExtraData having a value_kind = 1.
I tried to JsonSerializer.Serialize the data and it came out in a triple escaped string.
I have seen people trying to create a entire document of dynamic data, and using a object cast, but I feel that isnt the answer here because I have a document that I want to add a dynamic object too.
NEST and Elaticsearch.Net 7.16.0

Answer 1

You can do this with the following:
You need to have a type to model the dynamic behaviour of the field. Now, you could specify it as dynamic on the ESDoc class, but you'll need an instance of a type to assign to it and Nest deserializes JSON to a Dictionary<string, object> for a dynamic member. Because of this, you might want to use the DynamicDictionary type in Elasticsearch.Net (a dependency of Nest) that is a dictionary with dynamic access behaviour
public class ESDoc
{
public string Field1 { get; set; }
public int Field2 { get; set; }
public DynamicDictionary ExtraData { get; set; }
}
Map ExtraData as object data type with enabled: false, so that it is not parsed and indexed
var createIndexResponse = client.Indices.Create("myindex", c => c
.Map<ESDoc>(m => m
.Properties(p => p
.Text(t => t
.Name(f => f.Field1)
)
.Number(t => t
.Name(f => f.Field2)
.Type(NumberType.Integer)
)
.Object<object>(o => o
.Name(f => f.ExtraData)
.Enabled(false)
)
)
)
);
Now index a doc, refresh the index, and search for it to ensure it deserializes as expected
dynamic extraData = new DynamicDictionary();
extraData.foo = "Foo";
extraData.bar = new DynamicDictionary
{
["baz"] = new DynamicValue("Baz")
};
var doc = new ESDoc
{
Field1 = "test1",
Field2 = 3,
ExtraData = extraData
};
client.Index(doc, s => s.Index("myindex"));
client.Indices.Refresh("myindex");
var searchResponse = client.Search<ESDoc>(s => s.Index("myindex"));
var firstDoc = searchResponse.Documents.First();
var baz = firstDoc.ExtraData["bar"]["baz"];
Console.WriteLine($"{baz}");