Manage entities-Vector Retrieval Service for Milvus(Milvus)-阿里云帮助中心

In Milvus, entities are data objects with specific properties and features. Fundamental operations for managing a Milvus database include creating, reading, updating, and deleting entities. This topic describes how to insert, update, and delete entities in Milvus.

Prerequisites

The PyMilvus library is installed on your local client and is updated to the latest version.
To install or update the PyMilvus library, run the following command.
```
pip install --upgrade pymilvus
```
A Milvus instance has been created. For more information, see Create a Milvus instance.

A collection is created with a specified vector dimension and metric type. The following code provides an example.

from pymilvus import MilvusClient

client = MilvusClient(
    uri="http://c-xxxx.milvus.aliyuncs.com:19530",  # The public endpoint of the Milvus instance.
    token="<yourUsername>:<yourPassword>",  # The username and password for the Milvus instance.
    db_name="default"  # The name of the database to connect to.
)

client.create_collection(
    collection_name="<yourCollectionname>",  # The name of the collection to create.
    dimension=5,  # The dimension of the vectors in the collection.
    metric_type="IP"  # The metric type used to calculate vector similarity. This example uses "IP" (Inner Product).
)

Insert data

Before inserting data, you must structure the data as a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary in the list represents an entity and includes the predefined fields from the collection and any dynamic fields.

# Insert some data
data = [
    {"id": 0, "vector": [0.3580376395471989, -0.6023495712049978, 0.18414012509913835, -0.26286205330961354, 0.9029438446296592], "color": "pink_8682"},
    {"id": 1, "vector": [0.19886812562848388, 0.06023560599112088, 0.6976963061752597, 0.2614474506242501, 0.838729485096104], "color": "red_7025"},
    {"id": 2, "vector": [0.43742130801983836, -0.5597502546264526, 0.6457887650909682, 0.7894058910881185, 0.20785793220625592], "color": "orange_6781"},
    {"id": 3, "vector": [0.3172005263489739, 0.9719044792798428, -0.36981146090600725, -0.4860894583077995, 0.95791889146345], "color": "pink_9298"},
    {"id": 4, "vector": [0.4452349528804562, -0.8757026943054742, 0.8220779437047674, 0.46406290649483184, 0.30337481143159106], "color": "red_4794"},
    {"id": 5, "vector": [0.985825131989184, -0.8144651566660419, 0.6299267002202009, 0.1206906911183383, -0.1446277761879955], "color": "yellow_4222"},
    {"id": 6, "vector": [0.8371977790571115, -0.015764369584852833, -0.31062937026679327, -0.562666951622192, -0.8984947637863987], "color": "red_9392"},
    {"id": 7, "vector": [-0.33445148015177995, -0.2567135004164067, 0.8987539745369246, 0.9402995886420709, 0.5378064918413052], "color": "grey_8510"},
    {"id": 8, "vector": [0.39524717779832685, 0.4000257286739164, -0.5890507376891594, -0.8650502298996872, -0.6140360785406336], "color": "white_9381"},
    {"id": 9, "vector": [0.5718280481994695, 0.24070317428066512, -0.3737913482606834, -0.06726932177492717, -0.6980531615588608], "color": "purple_4976"}
]

res = client.insert(
    collection_name="milvus_collection",
    data=data
)

print(res)

Upsert data

# Upsert some data
data = [
    {"id": 0, "vector": [-0.619954382375778, 0.4479436794798608, -0.17493894838751745, -0.4248030059917294, -0.8648452746018911], "color": "black_9898"},
    {"id": 1, "vector": [0.4762662251462588, -0.6942502138717026, -0.4490002642657902, -0.628696575798281, 0.9660395877041965], "color": "red_7319"},
    {"id": 2, "vector": [-0.8864122635045097, 0.9260170474445351, 0.801326976181461, 0.6383943392381306, 0.7563037341572827], "color": "white_6465"},
    {"id": 3, "vector": [0.14594326235891586, -0.3775407299900644, -0.3765479013078812, 0.20612075380355122, 0.4902678929632145], "color": "orange_7580"},
    {"id": 4, "vector": [0.4548498669607359, -0.887610217681605, 0.5655081329910452, 0.19220509387904117, 0.016513983433433577], "color": "red_3314"},
    {"id": 5, "vector": [0.11755001847051827, -0.7295149788999611, 0.2608115847524266, -0.1719167007897875, 0.7417611743754855], "color": "black_9955"},
    {"id": 6, "vector": [0.9363032158314308, 0.030699901477745373, 0.8365910312319647, 0.7823840208444011, 0.2625222076909237], "color": "yellow_2461"},
    {"id": 7, "vector": [0.0754823906014721, -0.6390658668265143, 0.5610517334334937, -0.8986261118798251, 0.9372056764266794], "color": "white_5015"},
    {"id": 8, "vector": [-0.3038434006935904, 0.1279149203380523, 0.503958664270957, -0.2622661156746988, 0.7407627307791929], "color": "purple_6414"},
    {"id": 9, "vector": [-0.7125086947677588, -0.8050968321012257, -0.32608864121785786, 0.3255654958645424, 0.26227968923834233], "color": "brown_7231"}
]

res = client.upsert(
    collection_name='milvus_collection',
    data=data
)

print(res)

Delete data

Milvus supports two methods to delete entities:

Delete data based on a filter condition

# Delete entities
res = client.delete(
    collection_name="milvus_collection",
    filter="id in [4,5,6]"
)

print(res)

Delete data based on entity primary key IDs

res = client.delete(
    collection_name="milvus_collection",
    ids=[8, 9],
    partition_name="partitionA"  # Optional. Specify this parameter to delete entities from a specific partition.
)

print(res)