To illustrate the different query types in Elasticsearch, we will be searching a collection of book documents with the following fields; title, authors, summary, release date and number of reviews.
But first, let’s create a new index and index some documents using the bulk API
Here is a basic match query that searches for the string “guide” in all the fields
The full body version of this query is shown below and produces same results as the above search lite.
The
Both APIs also allow you specify what fields you want to search on. For example, to search for books with the words “in Action” in the title field:
However, the full body DSL gives you more flexibility in creating more complicated queries (as we will see later) and in specifying how you want the results back. In the example below we specify the number of results we want back, the offset to start from (useful for pagination), the document fields we want returned, and term highlighting.
UPDATE: Filtered queries have been removed from the upcoming Elasticsearch 5.0 in favor of the bool query. Here is the same example as above re-written to use the bool query instead. The results returned are exactly the same.
This also applies to multiple filters in the example below.
Note 1: We could have just run a regular
Note 2: There are a number of additional parameters that tweak the extent of the boosting effect on the original relevance score such as “modifier”, “factor”, “boost_mode”, etc. These are explored in detail in the Elasticsearch guide.
The scoring script looks like this:
Note 1: To use dynamic scripting, it must be enabled for your Elasticsearch instance in the
Note 2: JSON cannot include embedded newline characters so the semicolon is used to separate statements.
But first, let’s create a new index and index some documents using the bulk API
PUT /bookdb_index
{ "settings": { "number_of_shards": 1 }}
POST /bookdb_index/book/_bulk
{ "index": { "_id": 1 }}
{ "title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide", "authors": ["clinton gormley", "zachary tong"], "summary" : "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine", "publish_date" : "2015-02-07", "num_reviews": 20, "publisher": "oreilly" }
{ "index": { "_id": 2 }}
{ "title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It", "authors": ["grant ingersoll", "thomas morton", "drew farris"], "summary" : "organize text using approaches such as full-text search, proper name recognition, clustering, tagging, information extraction, and summarization", "publish_date" : "2013-01-24", "num_reviews": 12, "publisher": "manning" }
{ "index": { "_id": 3 }}
{ "title": "Elasticsearch in Action", "authors": ["radu gheorge", "matthew lee hinman", "roy russo"], "summary" : "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms", "publish_date" : "2015-12-03", "num_reviews": 18, "publisher": "manning" }
{ "index": { "_id": 4 }}
{ "title": "Solr in Action", "authors": ["trey grainger", "timothy potter"], "summary" : "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr", "publish_date" : "2014-04-05", "num_reviews": 23, "publisher": "manning" }
Examples
Basic Match Query
There are a two ways of executing a basic full-text (match) query: using the Search Lite API which expects all the search parameters to be passed in as part of the URL, or using the full JSON request body which allows you use the full Elasticsearch DSL.Here is a basic match query that searches for the string “guide” in all the fields
GET /bookdb_index/book/_search?q=guide
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.28168046,
"_source": {
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"authors": [
"clinton gormley",
"zachary tong"
],
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07",
"num_reviews": 20,
"publisher": "manning"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.24144039,
"_source": {
"title": "Solr in Action",
"authors": [
"trey grainger",
"timothy potter"
],
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05",
"num_reviews": 23,
"publisher": "manning"
}
}
]
The full body version of this query is shown below and produces same results as the above search lite.
{
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query" : "guide",
"fields" : ["_all"]
}
}
} The
multi_match keyword is used in place of the match keyword as a convenient shorthand way of running the same query against multiple fields. The fields property specifies what fields to query against and in this case we want to query against all the fields in the document.Both APIs also allow you specify what fields you want to search on. For example, to search for books with the words “in Action” in the title field:
GET /bookdb_index/book/_search?q=title:in action
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.6259885,
"_source": {
"title": "Solr in Action",
"authors": [
"trey grainger",
"timothy potter"
],
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05",
"num_reviews": 23,
"publisher": "manning"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 0.5975345,
"_source": {
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"authors": [
"radu gheorge",
"matthew lee hinman",
"roy russo"
],
"summary": "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03",
"num_reviews": 18,
"publisher": "manning"
}
}
] POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"match" : {
"title" : "in action"
}
},
"size": 2,
"from": 0,
"_source": [ "title", "summary", "publish_date" ],
"highlight": {
"fields" : {
"title" : {}
}
}
}
[Results]
"hits": {
"total": 2,
"max_score": 0.9105287,
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 0.9105287,
"_source": {
"summary": "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms",
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
},
"highlight": {
"title": [
"Elasticsearch <em>in</em> <em>Action</em>"
]
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.9105287,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
},
"highlight": {
"title": [
"Solr <em>in</em> <em>Action</em>"
]
}
}
]
} match query lets you specify whether to use the and operator instead of the default or operator. You can also specify the minimum_should_match option to tweak relevance of the returned results. Details can be found here.Multi-field Search
As we’ve seen already, to query more than one document field in a search (e.g. searching for the same query string in both the title and the summary) you use themulti_match query.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query" : "elasticsearch guide",
"fields": ["title", "summary"]
}
}
}
[Results]
"hits": {
"total": 3,
"max_score": 0.9448582,
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.9448582,
"_source": {
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"authors": [
"clinton gormley",
"zachary tong"
],
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07",
"num_reviews": 20,
"publisher": "manning"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 0.17312013,
"_source": {
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"authors": [
"radu gheorge",
"matthew lee hinman",
"roy russo"
],
"summary": "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03",
"num_reviews": 18,
"publisher": "manning"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.14965448,
"_source": {
"title": "Solr in Action",
"authors": [
"trey grainger",
"timothy potter"
],
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05",
"num_reviews": 23,
"publisher": "manning"
}
}
]
} Boosting
Since we are searching across multiple fields, we may want to boost the scores in a certain field. In the contrived example below, we boost scores from the summary field by a factor of 3 in order to increase the importance of the summary field, which will in turn increase the relevance of document_id 4.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query" : "elasticsearch guide",
"fields": ["title", "summary^3"]
}
},
"_source": ["title", "summary", "publish_date"]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.31495273,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.14965448,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 0.13094766,
"_source": {
"summary": "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms",
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
}
}
] Bool Query
The AND/OR/NOT operators can be used to fine tune our search queries in order to provide more relevant or specific results. This is implemented in the search API as abool query. The bool query accepts a must parameter (equivalent to AND), a must_not parameter (equivalent to NOT), and a should parameter (equivalent to OR). For example, if I want to search for a book with the word “Elasticsearch” OR “Solr” in the title, AND is authored by “clinton gormley” but NOT authored by “radu gheorge”:POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": {
"bool" : { "should": [
{ "match": { "title": "Elasticsearch" }},
{ "match": { "title": "Solr" }} ] }
},
"must": { "match": { "authors": "clinton gormely" }},
"must_not": { "match": {"authors": "radu gheorge" }}
}
}
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.3672021,
"_source": {
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"authors": [
"clinton gormley",
"zachary tong"
],
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07",
"num_reviews": 20,
"publisher": "oreilly"
}
}
] Fuzzy Queries
Fuzzy matching can be enabled on Match and Multi-Match queries to catch spelling errors. The degree of fuzziness is specified based on the Levenshtein distance from the original word.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query" : "comprihensiv guide",
"fields": ["title", "summary"],
"fuzziness": "AUTO"
}
},
"_source": ["title", "summary", "publish_date"],
"size": 1
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.5961596,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
}
] "AUTO" is equivalent to specifying a value of 2 when the term length is greater than 5. However, setting 80% of human misspellings have an edit distance of 1 and setting the fuzziness to 1 may improve your overall search performance. See the Typos and Misspellings chapter of Elasticsearch the Definitive Guide for more information.Wildcard Query
Wildcard queries allow you to specify a pattern to match instead of the entire term.? matches any character and * matches zero or more characters. For example, to find all records that have an author whose name begins with the letter ‘t’POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"wildcard" : {
"authors" : "t*"
}
},
"_source": ["title", "authors"],
"highlight": {
"fields" : {
"authors" : {}
}
}
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 1,
"_source": {
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"authors": [
"clinton gormley",
"zachary tong"
]
},
"highlight": {
"authors": [
"zachary <em>tong</em>"
]
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "2",
"_score": 1,
"_source": {
"title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It",
"authors": [
"grant ingersoll",
"thomas morton",
"drew farris"
]
},
"highlight": {
"authors": [
"<em>thomas</em> morton"
]
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 1,
"_source": {
"title": "Solr in Action",
"authors": [
"trey grainger",
"timothy potter"
]
},
"highlight": {
"authors": [
"<em>trey</em> grainger",
"<em>timothy</em> potter"
]
}
}
] Regexp Query
Regexp queries allow you specify more complex patterns than wildcard queries.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"regexp" : {
"authors" : "t[a-z]*y"
}
},
"_source": ["title", "authors"],
"highlight": {
"fields" : {
"authors" : {}
}
}
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 1,
"_source": {
"title": "Solr in Action",
"authors": [
"trey grainger",
"timothy potter"
]
},
"highlight": {
"authors": [
"<em>trey</em> grainger",
"<em>timothy</em> potter"
]
}
}
] Match Phrase Query
The match phrase query requires that all the terms in the query string be present in the document, be in the order specified in the query string and be close to each other. By default the terms are required to be exactly beside each other but you can specify theslop value which indicates how far apart terms are allowed to be while still considering the document a match.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query": "search engine",
"fields": ["title", "summary"],
"type": "phrase",
"slop": 3
}
},
"_source": [ "title", "summary", "publish_date" ]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.22327082,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.16113183,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
}
] _id 1 would normally have a higher score and appear ahead of document _id 4 because its field length is shorter. However, as a phrase query the proximity of the terms is factored in, so document _id 4 scores better.Match phrase prefix
Match phrase prefix queries provide search-as-you-type or a poor man’s version of autocomplete at query time without needing to prepare your data in any way. Like the match_phrase query, it accepts aslop parameter to make the word order and relative positions somewhat less rigid. I also accepts the max_expansions parameter to limit the number of terms matched in order to reduce resource intensity.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"match_phrase_prefix" : {
"summary": {
"query": "search en",
"slop": 3,
"max_expansions": 10
}
}
},
"_source": [ "title", "summary", "publish_date" ]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.5161346,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.37248808,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
}
] Query String
Thequery_string query provides a means of executing multi_match queries, bool queries, boosting, fuzzy matching, wildcards, regexp and range queries in a concise shorthand syntax. In the following example, we execute a fuzzy search for the terms “saerch algorithm” in which one of the book authors is “grant ingersoll” or “tom morton”. We search all fields but apply a boost of 2 to the summary field.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"query_string" : {
"query": "(saerch~1 algorithm~1) AND (grant ingersoll) OR (tom morton)",
"fields": ["_all", "summary^2"]
}
},
"_source": [ "title", "summary", "authors" ],
"highlight": {
"fields" : {
"summary" : {}
}
}
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "2",
"_score": 0.14558059,
"_source": {
"summary": "organize text using approaches such as full-text search, proper name recognition, clustering, tagging, information extraction, and summarization",
"title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It",
"authors": [
"grant ingersoll",
"thomas morton",
"drew farris"
]
},
"highlight": {
"summary": [
"organize text using approaches such as full-text <em>search</em>, proper name recognition, clustering, tagging, information extraction, and summarization"
]
}
}
] Simple Query String
Thesimple_query_string query is a version of the query_string query that is more suitable for use in a single search box that is exposed to users because; it replaces the use of AND/OR/NOT with +/|/- respectively, and it discards invalid parts of a query instead of throwing an exception if a user makes a mistake.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"simple_query_string" : {
"query": "(saerch~1 algorithm~1) + (grant ingersoll) | (tom morton)",
"fields": ["_all", "summary^2"]
}
},
"_source": [ "title", "summary", "authors" ],
"highlight": {
"fields" : {
"summary" : {}
}
}
} Term/Terms Query
The above examples have been examples of full-text search. Sometimes we are more interested in structured search in which we want to find an exact match and return the results. Theterm and terms queries help us here. In the below example, we are searching for all books in our index published by Manning Publications.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"term" : {
"publisher": "manning"
}
},
"_source" : ["title","publish_date","publisher"]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "2",
"_score": 1.2231436,
"_source": {
"publisher": "manning",
"title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It",
"publish_date": "2013-01-24"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 1.2231436,
"_source": {
"publisher": "manning",
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 1.2231436,
"_source": {
"publisher": "manning",
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
}
] terms keyword instead and passing in an array of search terms.{
"query": {
"terms" : {
"publisher": ["oreilly", "packt"]
}
}
} Term Query - Sorted
Term queries results (like any other query results) can easily be sorted. Multilevel sorting is also allowedPOST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"term" : {
"publisher": "manning"
}
},
"_source" : ["title","publish_date","publisher"],
"sort": [
{ "publish_date": {"order":"desc"}},
{ "title": { "order": "desc" }}
]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": null,
"_source": {
"publisher": "manning",
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
},
"sort": [
1449100800000,
"in"
]
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": null,
"_source": {
"publisher": "manning",
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
},
"sort": [
1396656000000,
"solr"
]
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "2",
"_score": null,
"_source": {
"publisher": "manning",
"title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It",
"publish_date": "2013-01-24"
},
"sort": [
1358985600000,
"to"
]
}
] Range Query
Another structured query example is the range query. In this example we search for books published in 2015.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"range" : {
"publish_date": {
"gte": "2015-01-01",
"lte": "2015-12-31"
}
}
},
"_source" : ["title","publish_date","publisher"]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 1,
"_source": {
"publisher": "oreilly",
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 1,
"_source": {
"publisher": "manning",
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
}
}
] Filtered Query
Filtered queries allow you filter down the results of a query. For our example, we are querying for books with the term “Elasticsearch” in title or summary but we want to filter our results to only those with 20 or more reviews.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"filtered": {
"query" : {
"multi_match": {
"query": "elasticsearch",
"fields": ["title","summary"]
}
},
"filter": {
"range" : {
"num_reviews": {
"gte": 20
}
}
}
}
},
"_source" : ["title","summary","publisher", "num_reviews"]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.5955761,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"publisher": "oreilly",
"num_reviews": 20,
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide"
}
}
] match_all query is run which basically returns all the documents in the index and then filters on it. In actuality, the filter is run first, reducing the surface area needed to be queried. Also the filter is cached after the first use which makes it very performant.UPDATE: Filtered queries have been removed from the upcoming Elasticsearch 5.0 in favor of the bool query. Here is the same example as above re-written to use the bool query instead. The results returned are exactly the same.
POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must" : {
"multi_match": {
"query": "elasticsearch",
"fields": ["title","summary"]
}
},
"filter": {
"range" : {
"num_reviews": {
"gte": 20
}
}
}
}
},
"_source" : ["title","summary","publisher", "num_reviews"]
}
This also applies to multiple filters in the example below.
Multiple Filters
Multiple filters can be combined through the use of thebool filter. In the next example, the filter determines that the returned results must have at least 20 reviews, must not be published before 2015 and should be published by oreilly.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"filtered": {
"query" : {
"multi_match": {
"query": "elasticsearch",
"fields": ["title","summary"]
}
},
"filter": {
"bool": {
"must": {
"range" : { "num_reviews": { "gte": 20 } }
},
"must_not": {
"range" : { "publish_date": { "lte": "2014-12-31" } }
},
"should": {
"term": { "publisher": "oreilly" }
}
}
}
}
},
"_source" : ["title","summary","publisher", "num_reviews", "publish_date"]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.5955761,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"publisher": "oreilly",
"num_reviews": 20,
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
}
] Function Score: Field Value Factor
There may be a case where you want to factor in the value of a particular field in your document into the calculation of the relevance score. This is typical in scenarios where you want the boost the relevance of a document based on its popularity. In our example, we would like the more popular books (as judged by the number of reviews) to be boosted. This is possible using thefield_value_factor function score.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"function_score": {
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query" : "search engine",
"fields": ["title", "summary"]
}
},
"field_value_factor": {
"field" : "num_reviews",
"modifier": "log1p",
"factor" : 2
}
}
},
"_source": ["title", "summary", "publish_date", "num_reviews"]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.44831306,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"num_reviews": 20,
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.3718407,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"num_reviews": 23,
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 0.046479136,
"_source": {
"summary": "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms",
"num_reviews": 18,
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "2",
"_score": 0.041432835,
"_source": {
"summary": "organize text using approaches such as full-text search, proper name recognition, clustering, tagging, information extraction, and summarization",
"num_reviews": 12,
"title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It",
"publish_date": "2013-01-24"
}
}
] multi_match query and sorted by the num_reviews field but then we lose the benefits of having relevance scoring.Note 2: There are a number of additional parameters that tweak the extent of the boosting effect on the original relevance score such as “modifier”, “factor”, “boost_mode”, etc. These are explored in detail in the Elasticsearch guide.
Function Score: Decay Functions
Suppose that instead of wanting to boost incrementally by the value of a field, you have ideal value you want to target and you want the boost factor to decay the further away you move from the value. This is typically useful in boosts based on lat/long, numeric fields like price, or dates. In our contrived example, we are searching for books on “search engines” ideally published around June 2014.POST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"function_score": {
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query" : "search engine",
"fields": ["title", "summary"]
}
},
"functions": [
{
"exp": {
"publish_date" : {
"origin": "2014-06-15",
"offset": "7d",
"scale" : "30d"
}
}
}
],
"boost_mode" : "replace"
}
},
"_source": ["title", "summary", "publish_date", "num_reviews"]
}
[Results]
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.27420625,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"num_reviews": 23,
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.005920768,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"num_reviews": 20,
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "2",
"_score": 0.000011564,
"_source": {
"summary": "organize text using approaches such as full-text search, proper name recognition, clustering, tagging, information extraction, and summarization",
"num_reviews": 12,
"title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It",
"publish_date": "2013-01-24"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 0.0000059171475,
"_source": {
"summary": "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms",
"num_reviews": 18,
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
}
}
] Function Score: Script Scoring
In the case where the built-in scoring functions do not meet your needs, there is the option to specify a Groovy script to use for scoring. In our example, we want to specify a script that takes into consideration the publish_date before deciding how much to factor in the number of reviews. Newer books may not have as many reviews yet so they should not be penalized for that.The scoring script looks like this:
publish_date = doc['publish_date'].value
num_reviews = doc['num_reviews'].value
if (publish_date > Date.parse('yyyy-MM-dd', threshold).getTime()) {
my_score = Math.log(2.5 + num_reviews)
} else {
my_score = Math.log(1 + num_reviews)
}
return my_score script_score parameterPOST /bookdb_index/book/_search
{
"query": {
"function_score": {
"query": {
"multi_match" : {
"query" : "search engine",
"fields": ["title", "summary"]
}
},
"functions": [
{
"script_score": {
"params" : {
"threshold": "2015-07-30"
},
"script": "publish_date = doc['publish_date'].value; num_reviews = doc['num_reviews'].value; if (publish_date > Date.parse('yyyy-MM-dd', threshold).getTime()) { return log(2.5 + num_reviews) }; return log(1 + num_reviews);"
}
}
]
}
},
"_source": ["title", "summary", "publish_date", "num_reviews"]
}
[Results]
"hits": {
"total": 4,
"max_score": 0.8463001,
"hits": [
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 0.8463001,
"_source": {
"summary": "A distibuted real-time search and analytics engine",
"num_reviews": 20,
"title": "Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide",
"publish_date": "2015-02-07"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "4",
"_score": 0.7067348,
"_source": {
"summary": "Comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable search engine using Apache Solr",
"num_reviews": 23,
"title": "Solr in Action",
"publish_date": "2014-04-05"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "3",
"_score": 0.08952084,
"_source": {
"summary": "build scalable search applications using Elasticsearch without having to do complex low-level programming or understand advanced data science algorithms",
"num_reviews": 18,
"title": "Elasticsearch in Action",
"publish_date": "2015-12-03"
}
},
{
"_index": "bookdb_index",
"_type": "book",
"_id": "2",
"_score": 0.07602123,
"_source": {
"summary": "organize text using approaches such as full-text search, proper name recognition, clustering, tagging, information extraction, and summarization",
"num_reviews": 12,
"title": "Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It",
"publish_date": "2013-01-24"
}
}
]
} config/elasticsearch.yaml file. It’s also possible to use scripts that have been stored on the Elasticsearch server. Checkout the Elasticsearch reference docs for more information.Note 2: JSON cannot include embedded newline characters so the semicolon is used to separate statements.
