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Bool Query

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Bool Query

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A query that matches documents matching boolean combinations of other queries. The bool query maps to Lucene BooleanQuery. It is built using one or more boolean clauses, each clause with a typed occurrence. The occurrence types are:

Occur	Description
`must`	The clause (query) must appear in matching documents and will contribute to the score.
`filter`	The clause (query) must appear in matching documents. However unlike `must` the score of the query will be ignored. Filter clauses are executed in filter context, meaning that scoring is ignored and clauses are considered for caching.
`should`	The clause (query) should appear in the matching document. If the `bool` query is in a query context and has a `must` or `filter` clause then a document will match the `bool` query even if none of the `should` queries match. In this case these clauses are only used to influence the score. If the `bool` query is a filter context or has neither `must` or `filter` then at least one of the `should` queries must match a document for it to match the `bool` query. This behavior may be explicitly controlled by settings the `minimum_should_match` parameter.
`must_not`	The clause (query) must not appear in the matching documents. Clauses are executed in filter context meaning that scoring is ignored and clauses are considered for caching. Because scoring is ignored, a score of `0` for all documents is returned.

Bool query in filter context

If this query is used in a filter context and it has should clauses then at least one should clause is required to match.

The bool query also supports disable_coord parameter (defaults to false) which changes how the classic similarity calculates the bool query’s score. Basically the coord similarity computes a score factor based on the fraction of all query terms that a document contains. See Lucene BooleanQuery for more details.

The bool query takes a more-matches-is-better approach, so the score from each matching must or should clause will be added together to provide the final _score for each document.

POST _search
{
  "query": {
    "bool" : {
      "must" : {
        "term" : { "user" : "kimchy" }
      },
      "filter": {
        "term" : { "tag" : "tech" }
      },
      "must_not" : {
        "range" : {
          "age" : { "gte" : 10, "lte" : 20 }
        }
      },
      "should" : [
        { "term" : { "tag" : "wow" } },
        { "term" : { "tag" : "elasticsearch" } }
      ],
      "minimum_should_match" : 1,
      "boost" : 1.0
    }
  }
}

Scoring with `bool.filter`

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Queries specified under the filter element have no effect on scoring — scores are returned as 0. Scores are only affected by the query that has been specified. For instance, all three of the following queries return all documents where the status field contains the term active.

This first query assigns a score of 0 to all documents, as no scoring query has been specified:

GET _search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "filter": {
        "term": {
          "status": "active"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

This bool query has a match_all query, which assigns a score of 1.0 to all documents.

GET _search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": {
        "match_all": {}
      },
      "filter": {
        "term": {
          "status": "active"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

This constant_score query behaves in exactly the same way as the second example above. The constant_score query assigns a score of 1.0 to all documents matched by the filter.

GET _search
{
  "query": {
    "constant_score": {
      "filter": {
        "term": {
          "status": "active"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Using named queries to see which clauses matched

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If you need to know which of the clauses in the bool query matched the documents returned from the query, you can use named queries to assign a name to each clause.

« Constant Score Query Dis Max Query »

Bool Query

Bool Query

Scoring with bool.filter

Using named queries to see which clauses matched

Scoring with `bool.filter`