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Term Query

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Term Query

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The term query finds documents that contain the exact term specified in the inverted index. For instance:

POST _search
{
  "query": {
    "term" : { "user" : "Kimchy" } 
  }
}

Finds documents which contain the exact term Kimchy in the inverted index of the user field.

A boost parameter can be specified to give this term query a higher relevance score than another query, for instance:

GET _search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "should": [
        {
          "term": {
            "status": {
              "value": "urgent",
              "boost": 2.0 
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "term": {
            "status": "normal" 
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

The urgent query clause has a boost of 2.0, meaning it is twice as important as the query clause for normal.

The normal clause has the default neutral boost of 1.0.

A term query can also match against range data types.

Why doesn’t the term query match my document?

String fields can be of type text (treated as full text, like the body of an email), or keyword (treated as exact values, like an email address or a zip code). Exact values (like numbers, dates, and keywords) have the exact value specified in the field added to the inverted index in order to make them searchable.

However, text fields are analyzed. This means that their values are first passed through an analyzer to produce a list of terms, which are then added to the inverted index.

There are many ways to analyze text: the default standard analyzer drops most punctuation, breaks up text into individual words, and lower cases them. For instance, the standard analyzer would turn the string “Quick Brown Fox!” into the terms [quick, brown, fox].

This analysis process makes it possible to search for individual words within a big block of full text.

The term query looks for the exact term in the field’s inverted index — it doesn’t know anything about the field’s analyzer. This makes it useful for looking up values in keyword fields, or in numeric or date fields. When querying full text fields, use the match query instead, which understands how the field has been analyzed.

To demonstrate, try out the example below. First, create an index, specifying the field mappings, and index a document:

PUT my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "_doc": {
      "properties": {
        "full_text": {
          "type":  "text" 
        },
        "exact_value": {
          "type":  "keyword" 
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

PUT my_index/_doc/1
{
  "full_text":   "Quick Foxes!", 
  "exact_value": "Quick Foxes!"  
}

The full_text field is of type text and will be analyzed.

The exact_value field is of type keyword and will NOT be analyzed.

The full_text inverted index will contain the terms: [quick, foxes].

The exact_value inverted index will contain the exact term: [Quick Foxes!].

Now, compare the results for the term query and the match query:

GET my_index/_search
{
  "query": {
    "term": {
      "exact_value": "Quick Foxes!" 
    }
  }
}

GET my_index/_search
{
  "query": {
    "term": {
      "full_text": "Quick Foxes!" 
    }
  }
}

GET my_index/_search
{
  "query": {
    "term": {
      "full_text": "foxes" 
    }
  }
}

GET my_index/_search
{
  "query": {
    "match": {
      "full_text": "Quick Foxes!" 
    }
  }
}

This query matches because the exact_value field contains the exact term Quick Foxes!.

This query does not match, because the full_text field only contains the terms quick and foxes. It does not contain the exact term Quick Foxes!.

A term query for the term foxes matches the full_text field.

This match query on the full_text field first analyzes the query string, then looks for documents containing quick or foxes or both.
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