Search-as-you-type field type

Introduced 1.0

A search-as-you-type field type provides search-as-you-type functionality using both prefix and infix completion.

Example

Mapping a search-as-you-type field creates n-gram subfields of this field, where n is in the range [2, max_shingle_size]. Additionally, it creates an index prefix subfield.

Create a mapping with a search-as-you-type field:

PUT books
{
  "mappings": {
    "properties": {
      "suggestions": {
        "type": "search_as_you_type"
      }
    }
  }
}

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In addition to the suggestions field, this creates suggestions._2gram, suggestions._3gram, and suggestions._index_prefix fields.

Index a document with a search-as-you-type field:

PUT books/_doc/1
{
  "suggestions": "one two three four"
}

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To match terms in any order, use a bool_prefix or multi-match query. These queries rank the documents in which search terms are in the specified order higher than the documents in which terms are out of order.

GET books/_search
{
  "query": {
    "multi_match": {
      "query": "tw one",
      "type": "bool_prefix",
      "fields": [
        "suggestions",
        "suggestions._2gram",
        "suggestions._3gram"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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The response contains the matching document:

{
  "took" : 13,
  "timed_out" : false,
  "_shards" : {
    "total" : 1,
    "successful" : 1,
    "skipped" : 0,
    "failed" : 0
  },
  "hits" : {
    "total" : {
      "value" : 1,
      "relation" : "eq"
    },
    "max_score" : 1.0,
    "hits" : [
      {
        "_index" : "books",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id" : "1",
        "_score" : 1.0,
        "_source" : {
          "suggestions" : "one two three four"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

To match terms in order, use a match_phrase_prefix query:

GET books/_search
{
  "query": {
    "match_phrase_prefix": {
      "suggestions": "two th"
    }
  }
}

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The response contains the matching document:

{
  "took" : 23,
  "timed_out" : false,
  "_shards" : {
    "total" : 1,
    "successful" : 1,
    "skipped" : 0,
    "failed" : 0
  },
  "hits" : {
    "total" : {
      "value" : 1,
      "relation" : "eq"
    },
    "max_score" : 0.4793051,
    "hits" : [
      {
        "_index" : "books",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id" : "1",
        "_score" : 0.4793051,
        "_source" : {
          "suggestions" : "one two three four"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

To match the last terms exactly, use a match_phrase query:

GET books/_search
{
  "query": {
    "match_phrase": {
      "suggestions": "four"
    }
  }
}

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Response:

{
  "took" : 2,
  "timed_out" : false,
  "_shards" : {
    "total" : 1,
    "successful" : 1,
    "skipped" : 0,
    "failed" : 0
  },
  "hits" : {
    "total" : {
      "value" : 1,
      "relation" : "eq"
    },
    "max_score" : 0.2876821,
    "hits" : [
      {
        "_index" : "books",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id" : "1",
        "_score" : 0.2876821,
        "_source" : {
          "suggestions" : "one two three four"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Parameters

The following table lists the parameters accepted by search-as-you-type field types. All parameters are optional.