Using a REST API to POST a product of type_id "virtual", and there are a couple of issues.
1. Doing a POST request for a virtual product and even though a product's JSON has
"stock_item" : { "is_in_stock" : false,
"qty" : 0 }and is subsequently shown as "out of stock" with quantity "0" in Admin, it's still shown in the storefront as available, but you cannot actually add it to the cart, a message immediately appears saying that required quantity is not available (which is of course expected). Got me puzzled for a while, but it's fixed by running php bin/magento indexer:reindex.
2. After reindexing everything appears as it should (only in-stock options are visible), however when I change quantities in our database and POST the same virtual product again, the stock status would only change if going from "0/out of stock" to 1 or more. Then the Front immediately picks it up and I see the option appear. However, when a certain virtual product already was in-stock with quantity > 0 and I'm doing a POST to mark it as out of stock with quantity = 0, it's still visible in the storefront until I do a reindex.
Note: if all of the virtual products are listed set as out of stock then even after POSTing the main product is not shown, as expected. But if even a single virtual product has quantity > 0 then all of the options/virtual products are visible inside the main product.
Questions, therefore:
1. Am I doing something wrong? Why, even though I explicitly say that a virtual product has 0 quantity, it still appears in the store until I do a reindex? Why does it work fine the other way without reindexing?
2. If it's indeed a feature, is it possible to make a REST request to trigger a reindex instead of going to the CLI to do it?
