# Help understanding Upsert - How to Commit Mutations/Upserts

**URL:** <https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566>\
**Category:** Dgraph\
**Tags:** status:accepted, area:documentation, area:upsert\
**Created:** [August 19, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566 "2020-08-19T18:55:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![amaster507](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/amaster507/32/4123_2.png) [@amaster507](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/amaster507)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/1 "2020-08-19T18:55:48Z")

</div>

I am still struggling to understand [upserts](https://dgraph.io/docs/mutations/upsert-block/)

I have the following query that finds all of the uids that I want to update:

```auto
{
  groupNote(func: has(Note.access)) @filter(eq(Note.isPublic, true)) @cascade {
    uid
    Note.isPublic
    Note.access {
      uid
      ACL.grants {
        uid
        Contact.isGroup {
          uid
          Group.slug
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

```

This query works perfect. So I want to change the `Note.isPublic` to `false`. I figured that would be simple for an upsert…

```auto
upsert {
  query {
    groupNote as var(func: has(Note.access)) @filter(eq(Note.isPublic, true)) @cascade {
      uid
      Note.isPublic
      Note.access {
        uid
        ACL.grants {
          uid
          Contact.isGroup {
            uid
            Group.slug
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
  mutation {
    set {
      uid(groupNote) <Note.isPublic> "false" .
    }
  }
}

```

I get the response

```auto
{
  "data": {
    "code": "Success",
    "message": "Done",
    "queries": {},
    "uids": {}
  }
}

```

Which I guess is misleading to me. While it probably did what I told it to do, it did not do what I expected it to do. If I do the originaly query again, I still get the same results, meaning that `Note.isPublic` was not updated to `false`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![amaster507](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/amaster507/32/4123_2.png) [@amaster507](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/amaster507)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 7:21pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/2 "2020-08-19T19:21:18Z")

</div>

I did it in the meantime by running the query and getting a list of ids manually (over 3K) and then running a graphql mutation with those ids and set the desired field to false.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dmai](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/dmai/32/1254_2.png) [@dmai](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/dmai)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/3 "2020-08-19T19:45:46Z")

</div>

> [@amaster507](#):
>
> ```auto
> uid(graoupNote) <Note.isPublic> "false" .
> 
> ```

Did you mean `uid(groupNote)` here? groupNote is the name of your query variable.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![amaster507](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/amaster507/32/4123_2.png) [@amaster507](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/amaster507)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 7:47pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/4 "2020-08-19T19:47:47Z")

</div>

```auto
uid(groupNote) <Note.isPublic> "false" .

```

Is the actual line I was using. Sorry, I mis-typed in my question.

If I had done this it would have thrown a variables defined/used error.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dmai](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/dmai/32/1254_2.png) [@dmai](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/dmai)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 7:54pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/5 "2020-08-19T19:54:18Z")

</div>

The example you shared should work, as you’re using the query variable and setting the value. Are you committing the upsert mutation?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![amaster507](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/amaster507/32/4123_2.png) [@amaster507](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/amaster507)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/6 "2020-08-19T19:55:37Z")

</div>

> [@dmai](#):
>
> Are you committing the upsert mutation?

This must be where I am going astray…

I am sending the upsert to dgraph (using Slash) to the mutate endpoint with the `application/rdf` content-type. How do I commit it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dmai](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/dmai/32/1254_2.png) [@dmai](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/dmai)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 7:58pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/7 "2020-08-19T19:58:28Z")

</div>

Over the HTTP API, you can set `/mutate?commitNow=true` for the /mutate endpoint.

For txns with multiple mutations, you can call /commit separately with the appropriate timestamp and txn keys/preds: [https://dgraph.io/docs/clients/raw-http/#committing-the-transaction](https://dgraph.io/docs/clients/raw-http/#committing-the-transaction)

When you commit, you’ll see the `commit_ts` in the extensions in the response, e.g.:

```
{
    "data": { ... },
    "extensions": {
        "txn": {
          "start_ts": 200460131, **"commit\_ts": 200460132,**...
        }
    }
}
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![amaster507](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/amaster507/32/4123_2.png) [@amaster507](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/amaster507)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 8:10pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/help-understanding-upsert-how-to-commit-mutations-upserts/9566/8 "2020-08-19T20:10:22Z")

</div>

yes, that is what I have been missing. I was reading the docs on [Upsert Block](https://dgraph.io/docs/mutations/upsert-block/) and I see now that in passing it mentions,

> Execution of an upsert block also returns the response of the query executed on the state of the database _before mutation was executed_ . To get the latest result, we should commit the mutation and execute another query.

I did not understand that clearly enough that I had to do that before the changes were **committed** , I understood it to mean that in order to get the data after the upsert I would need to run a separate query.

Looking back in the docs at [Mutations using cURL](https://dgraph.io/docs/mutations/mutations-using-curl/) I see:

> To commit the mutation, pass the parameter `commitNow=true` in the URL.

A link to committing mutations should probably be on the Upsert Block doc page, now that it is a separate page by itself (I think it used to be one big doc page for Mutations). Maybe even a page dedicated to “Committing Mutations” inside of the Mutation docs that can then be linked to from anywhere discussing the need to commit before changes become “live”