Multi-field Search with Array Using 'AND' Operator in elasticsearch

Question

I want to query the values of a multi-value field as separate 'fields' in the same way I'm querying the other fields. I have a data structure like so:

{
  name: 'foo one',
  alternate_name: 'bar two',
  lay_name: 'baz three',
  tags: ['stuff like', 'this that']
}

My query looks like this:

{
  query:
    query: stuff
    type: 'best_fields',
    fields: ['name', 'alternate_name', 'lay_name', 'tags'],
    operator: 'and'
}

The 'type' and 'operator' work perfectly for the single value fields in only matching when the value contains my entire query. For example, querying 'foo two' doesn't return a match.

I'd like the tags field to behave the same way. Right now, querying 'stuff that' will return a match when it shouldn't because no fields or tag values contain both words in a single value. Is there a way to achieve this?

EDIT Val's assessment was spot on. I've updated my mapping to the following (using elasticsearch-rails/elasticsearch-model):

mapping dynamic: false, include_in_all: true do
  ... other fields ...
  indexes :tags, type: 'nested' do
    indexes :tag, type: 'string', include_in_parent: true
  end
end

Val · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-21 03:34:43Z

2

Please show your mapping type, but I suspect your tags field is a simple string field like this:

{
    "your_type" : {
        "properties" : {
            "tags" : {
                "type" : "string"
            }
        }
    }
}

In this case ES will "flatten" all your tags under the hood in the tags field at indexing time like this:

tags: "stuff", "like", "this", "that"

i.e. this is why you get results when querying "stuff that", because the tags field contains both words.

The way forward would be to make tags a nested object type, like this

{
    "your_type" : {
        "properties" : {
            "tags" : {
                "type" : "nested",
                "properties": {
                    "tag" : {"type": "string" }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

You'll need to reindex your data but at least querying for tags: "stuff that" will not return anything anymore. Your tag tokens will be "kept together" as you expect. Give it a try.

answered May 21, 2015 at 3:34

Val

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1 Comment

RogerMo Over a year ago

You were spot on. Thank you!

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