To insert documents in bulk into a database you need to supply a JSON structure with the array of documents that you want to add to the database. Using this method you can either include a document ID, or allow the document ID to be automatically generated.

For example, the following inserts three new documents, two with the supplied document IDs, and one which will have a document ID generated:

{
   "docs" : [
      {
         "_id" : "FishStew",
         "servings" : 4,
         "subtitle" : "Delicious with fresh bread",
         "title" : "Fish Stew"
      },
      {
         "_id" : "LambStew",
         "servings" : 6,
         "subtitle" : "Delicious with scone topping",
         "title" : "Lamb Stew"
      },
      {
         "servings" : 8,
         "subtitle" : "Delicious with suet dumplings",
         "title" : "Beef Stew"
      },
   ]
}

The return type from a bulk insertion will be 201, with the content of the returned structure indicating specific success or otherwise messages on a per-document basis.

The return structure from the example above contains a list of the documents created, here with the combination and their revision IDs:

POST http://couchdb:5984/recipes/_bulk_docs
Content-Type: application/json

[
   {
      "id" : "FishStew",
      "rev" : "1-9c65296036141e575d32ba9c034dd3ee",
   },
   {
      "id" : "LambStew",
      "rev" : "1-34c318924a8f327223eed702ddfdc66d",
   },
   {
      "id" : "7f7638c86173eb440b8890839ff35433",
      "rev" : "1-857c7cbeb6c8dd1dd34a0c73e8da3c44",
   }
]

The content and structure of the returned JSON will depend on the transaction semantics being used for the bulk update; see Section 5.9.3, “Bulk Documents Transaction Semantics” for more information. Conflicts and validation errors when updating documents in bulk must be handled separately; see Section 5.9.4, “Bulk Document Validation and Conflict Errors”.