Query Types

A match query analyzes input text, and uses the results to query an index. Options include specifying an analyzer, performing a fuzzy match, and performing a prefix match. By default, the analyzer used for the input-text is that previously used on the target-text, during index-creation. For information on analyzers, see Understanding Analyzers.

{
 "match": "location hostel",
 "field": "reviews.content",
 "analyzer": "standard",
 "fuzziness": 3,
 "prefix_length": 4
}

The input text is analyzed, and a phrase query is built with the terms resulting from the analysis. This type of query searches for terms in the target that occur in the positions and offsets indicated by the input: this depends on term vectors, which must have been included in the creation of the index used for the search.

{
 "match_phrase": "very nice",
 "field": "reviews.content"
}

A fuzzy query matches terms within a specified edit (or Levenshtein) distance: meaning that terms are considered to match when they are to a specified degree similar, rather than exact. A common prefix of a stated length may be also specified as a requirement for matching.

{
 "term": "interest",
 "field": "reviews.content",
 "fuzziness": 2
}

A prefix query finds documents containing terms that start with the specified prefix.

{
 "prefix": "inter",
 "field": "reviews.content"
}

A regexp query finds documents containing terms that match the specified regular expression.

{
 "regexp": "inter.+",
 "field": "reviews.content"
}

A wildcard query uses a wildcard expression, to search within individual terms for matches. Wildcard expressions can be any single character (?) or zero to many characters (*). Wildcard expressions can appear in the middle or end of a term, but not at the beginning.

{
 "wildcard": "inter*",
 "field": "reviews.content"
}

A boolean field query searches fields that contain boolean true or false values. A boolean field query searches the actual content of the field, and should not be confused with the boolean queries (described below, in the section on compound queries) that modify whether a query must, should, or must not be present.

{
 "bool": true,
 "field": "free_breakfast"
}

A conjunction query contains multiple child queries. Its result documents must satisfy all of the child queries.

{
 "conjuncts":[
   {"field":"reviews.content", "match": "location"},
   {"field":"free_breakfast", "bool": true}
 ]
}

A disjunction query contains multiple child queries. Its result documents must satisfy a configurable min number of child queries. By default this min is set to 1. For example, if three child queries — A, B, and C — are specified, a min of 1 specifies that the result documents should be those returned uniquely for A (with all returned uniquely for B and C, and all returned commonly for A, B, and C, omitted).

{
 "disjuncts":[
   {"field":"reviews.content", "match": "location"},
   {"field":"free_breakfast", "bool": true}
 ]
}

A boolean query is a combination of conjunction and disjunction queries. A boolean query takes three lists of queries:

{
 "must": {
   "conjuncts":[{"field":"reviews.content", "match": "location"}]},
 "must_not": {
   "disjuncts": [{"field":"free_breakfast", "bool": false}]},
 "should": {
   "disjuncts": [{"field":"free_breakfast", "bool": true}]}
}

A doc ID query returns the indexed document or documents among the specified set. This is typically used in conjunction queries, to restrict the scope of other queries’ output.

{ "ids": [ "hotel_10158", "hotel_10159" ] }

A date range query finds documents containing a date value, in the specified field within the specified range. Dates should be in the format specified by RFC-3339, which is a specific profile of ISO-8601. Define the endpoints using the fields start and end. One endpoint can be omitted, but not both. The inclusiveStart and inclusiveEnd properties in the query JSON control whether or not the endpoints are included or excluded.

{
 "start": "2001-10-09T10:20:30-08:00",
 "end": "2016-10-31",
 "inclusive_start": false,
 "inclusive_end": false,
 "field": "review_date"
}

A numeric range query finds documents containing a numeric value in the specified field within the specified range. Define the endpoints using the fields min and max. You can omit one endpoint, but not both. The inclusiveMin and inclusiveMax properties control whether or not the endpoints are included or excluded. By default, min is inclusive and max is exclusive.

{
 "min": 100, "max": 1000,
 "inclusive_min": false,
 "inclusive_max": false,
 "field": "id"
}

A term without any other syntax is interpreted as a match query for the term in the default field. The default field is _all.

Placing the search terms in quotes performs a match phrase query. For example: light beer performs a match phrase query for the phrase light beer.

The specified field in which to search can be specified by prefixing the term with a field-name, separated by a colon. For example, description:water performs a match query for the term water, in the description field.

When a query string includes multiple items, by default these are placed into the SHOULD clause of a boolean query. This can be adjusted, by prefixing items with either + or -. Prefixing with + places that item in the MUST portion of the boolean query. Prefixing with - places that item in the MUST NOT portion of the boolean query.

When multiple query-clauses are specified, the relative importance a given clause can be specified by suffixing it with the ^ operator, followed by a number. For example, description:water name:water^5 performs Match Queries for water in both the name and description fields, but documents having the term in the name field score higher.

Numeric ranges can be specified with the >, >=, <, and <= operators, each followed by a numeric value. For example, abv:>10 performs a numeric range query on the abv field, for values greater than 10.

A term query is the simplest possible query. It performs an exact match in the index for the provided term.

{
  "term": "locate",
  "field": "reviews.content"
}

A phrase query searches for terms occurring in the specified position and offsets. It performs an exact term-match for all the phrase-constituents, without using an analyzer.

{
  "terms": ["nice", "view"],
  "field": "reviews.content"
}

Matches all documents in an index, irrespective of terms. For example, if an index is created on the travel-sample bucket for documents of type zucchini, the match all query returns all document IDs from the travel-sample bucket, even though the bucket contains no documents of type zucchini.

{ "match_all": {} }

Matches no documents in the index.

{ "match_none": {} }