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Updating Multiple Objects

This API updates multiple objects in a data table with a single request. Consider the following example, it demonstrates an API call which updates all objects in the Person data table where the value of the property age is greater than 20. As a result of the request, all updated objects will have the contactType property set to "personal":

curl -X PUT \  
  -H 'Content-Type:application/json' \  
  -d '{ "contactType":"personal" }' \  
'https://xxxx.backendless.app/api/data/bulk/Person?where=age%20%3E%2010'

Method

PUT

Endpoint URL

The xxxx.backendless.app is a subdomain assigned to your application. For more information see the Client-side Setup section of this documentation.

https://xxxx.backendless.app/api/data/bulk/<table-name>?where=<where clause>

where:

Argument                Description
<table-name> name of the table where the objects need to be updated.
<where clause> a condition for selecting the objects in the targeted table for the bulk update. Must be a URL-encoded value.

Request Headers

Content-Type:application/json  
user-token: value-of-the-user-token-header-from-login

where:

Argument                Description
Content-Type Must be set to application/json. This header is mandatory.
user-token Optional header. Contains a value returned by Backendless in a preceding user Login API call. The operation will be executed with the security policy associated with the currently logged in user. This means all permissions associated with the user and the roles assigned to the user will be enforced by Backendless.

Request Body

A JSON object containing the changes which will be applied to all objects which match the <where clause> condition in the URL.

Response Body

The API returns the number object of objects updated as a result of the request.

Codeless Reference

data_service_bulk_update

where:

Argument                Description
table name Name of the data table where records must be updated.
where clause A condition which references a column name and a specific value in the data table where an update has to be carried out. Refer to the Search With The Where Clause topic for more information.
changes This parameter expects a JSON object that must contain the name of the column and a new value to update the existing contents with.
Return count of updated objects Optional parameter. When this box is checked, the operation returns the number of updated objects.

Returns the number of updated records.

Consider the following records in the employees data table:
data_service_example_bulk_update_1

In order to select data that must be updated, the example below sets a condition(where clause) for update operation to "ContactType = 'Personal'". As you can see in the screenshot above, the contactType is the column where two string values Personal are stored. By setting a condition, the method gets instructed to apply an update in a specific place(contactType column) and for a specific value(Personal).

data_service_example_bulk_update_2

The result of this operation will look as shown below after the Codeless logic runs. The values in the contactType column were changed from Personal to Work.

data_service_example_bulk_update_3

Moreover, the operation has returned the number 2, indicating the number of updated objects in the employees data table.

data_service_example_bulk_update_4