[Feature Request] cancel_after_time_interval and timeout parameters should remain one

[kkewwei]

Describe the solution you'd like

As a user, when setting timeout, we want to return after timeout, regardless of whether it is a shard-level timeout or a request-level timeout. now we support cancel_after_time_interval and timeout, which are a bit redundant. In addition, if the user sets cancel_after_time_interval smaller than timeout, then timeout will have no effect.

Can we replace cancel_after_time_interval with timeout in some case? Implement timeout cancellation function on timeout, and remove the meaning of shard-level timeout on timeout.

Related component

Search

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Additional context

No response

[noCharger]

@kkewwei there's a post on forum which might answer your question https://forum.opensearch.org/t/cancel-after-time-interval-clarification/15915/4

[kkewwei]

@noCharger https://forum.opensearch.org/t/cancel-after-time-interval-clarification/15915/4 only describe the meaning of configuration, what I want to describe is whether we should remove the shard-level timeout and only keep request-level timeout, this doesn't seem like one thing.

[sohami]

@kkewwei you can read the discussion here around the same topic: #817. There are nuances around partial results and both the settings has different meaning.

[kkewwei]

@sohami I know the nuances, and I also think cancel_after_timeinterval is useful.

But from the user's perspective, I don't care shard-level timeout and request-level timeout, if a timeout is set, then we want to return directly(partial result or failure) after timeout. If we can merge cancel_after_time_interval and timeout?

[kkewwei]

@sohami @Bukhtawar @getsaurabh02 please help check, It seems that if timeout can be equal to cancel_after_time_interval in RestSearchAction.parseSearchRequest in some case:

        if (request.hasParam("cancel_after_time_interval")) {
            TimeValue cancelAfterTimeInterval = request.paramAsTime("cancel_after_time_interval", null);
            searchRequest.setCancelAfterTimeInterval(cancelAfterTimeInterval);
            TimeValue timeValue = searchRequest.source().timeout();
            if (timeValue == null || timeValue.compareTo(cancelAfterTimeInterval) > 0) {
                searchRequest.source().timeout(cancelAfterTimeInterval);
            }
        }

In product, timeout is widely used, but cancel_after_time_interval is too new to use rarely, so the important feature cannot be used.