# Best practise: Searching complex docs with ElasticSearch **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [October 20, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practise-searching-complex-docs-with-elasticsearch/20350 "2014-10-20T19:53:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Neil\_Middleton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/neil_middleton/32/1179_2.png) [@Neil\_Middleton](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Neil_Middleton)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practise-searching-complex-docs-with-elasticsearch/20350/1 "2014-10-20T19:53:12Z")
I'm wanting to search a series of documents which have a nested object nature. For instance a Github issue. I'm needing to ideally use the ES search lite [http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/search-lite.html](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/search-lite.html) syntax I have some top level data (assignee, created\_at etc) and some nested items, think comments or commits etc. Dumping an entire document into ES makes it easily searchable but some weird side effects come up, most notably around sorting on the nested comments. What's the best practice for this kind of document search? Is it better to split the comments into seperate documents with issue meta data attached, or via each issue being a big dump in a document? Ideally, I'd like to be able to search for an document, and sort by one of the attributes of the document, either at the top level, or nested inside one of the comments. Any ideas? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Nick\_Zadrozny](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nick_zadrozny/32/1150_2.png) [@Nick\_Zadrozny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Nick_Zadrozny)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practise-searching-complex-docs-with-elasticsearch/20350/2 "2014-10-20T20:52:09Z")
Hey Neil, Sounds interesting. For these questions, I think it's helpful to consider the interface you're building for the user. What's the fundamental "thing" being shown in a list of search results? Nested documents can be convenient, but generally I think the modeling for this kind of scenario works best when you denormalize the data as much as possible. In that approach, you'd index the children as individual documents, and save the parent attributes onto them. Field Collapsing can help if you're matching against multiple Comments but are more interested in showing and sorting the parent Issues they belong to. > **[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale](https://www.elastic.co)** > > Power insights and outcomes with the Elasticsearch Platform and AI. See into your data and find answers that matter with enterprise solutions designed to help you build, observe, and protect. Try Elasticsearch free today. On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Neil Middleton [neil@heroku.com](mailto:neil@heroku.com) wrote: > I'm wanting to search a series of documents which have a nested object > nature. For instance a Github issue. I'm needing to ideally use the ES search > lite > [http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/search-lite.html](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/search-lite.html) > syntax > > I have some top level data (assignee, created\_at etc) and some nested > items, think comments or commits etc. > > Dumping an entire document into ES makes it easily searchable but some > weird side effects come up, most notably around sorting on the nested > comments. > > What's the best practice for this kind of document search? Is it better to > split the comments into seperate documents with issue meta data attached, > or via each issue being a big dump in a document? > > Ideally, I'd like to be able to search for an document, and sort by one of > the attributes of the document, either at the top level, or nested inside > one of the comments. > > Any ideas? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > To view this discussion on the web visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com) > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com?utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=footer](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer) > . > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). -- Nick Zadrozny Cofounder, CEO One More Cloud [websolr.com](http://websolr.com) • [bonsai.io](http://bonsai.io) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAPTxa80VireENz2a9p2X246\_0pq3Yn\_Q7hZBb%3Ddh7NGuNe28LA%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAPTxa80VireENz2a9p2X246_0pq3Yn_Q7hZBb%3Ddh7NGuNe28LA%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Neil\_Middleton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/neil_middleton/32/1179_2.png) [@Neil\_Middleton](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Neil_Middleton)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practise-searching-complex-docs-with-elasticsearch/20350/3 "2014-10-20T21:00:16Z")
The parallel of a github issue is a good one. There are top level elements (title, body) etc, and comments nested under that. Comment requests I see are to find all issues with a certain string in a comment, ordered by recency, but the item we want to show in the results is a link to the issue. N On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Nick Zadrozny [nick@onemorecloud.com](mailto:nick@onemorecloud.com) wrote: > Hey Neil, > > Sounds interesting. For these questions, I think it's helpful to consider > the interface you're building for the user. What's the fundamental "thing" > being shown in a list of search results? > > Nested documents can be convenient, but generally I think the modeling for > this kind of scenario works best when you denormalize the data as much as > possible. In that approach, you'd index the children as individual > documents, and save the parent attributes onto them. > > Field Collapsing can help if you're matching against multiple Comments but > are more interested in showing and sorting the parent Issues they belong > to. > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/top-hits.html) > > On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Neil Middleton [neil@heroku.com](mailto:neil@heroku.com) wrote: > > > I'm wanting to search a series of documents which have a nested object > > nature. For instance a Github issue. I'm needing to ideally use the ES search > > lite > > [http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/search-lite.html](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/search-lite.html) > > syntax > > > > I have some top level data (assignee, created\_at etc) and some nested > > items, think comments or commits etc. > > > > Dumping an entire document into ES makes it easily searchable but some > > weird side effects come up, most notably around sorting on the nested > > comments. > > > > What's the best practice for this kind of document search? Is it better > > to split the comments into seperate documents with issue meta data > > attached, or via each issue being a big dump in a document? > > > > Ideally, I'd like to be able to search for an document, and sort by one > > of the attributes of the document, either at the top level, or nested > > inside one of the comments. > > > > Any ideas? > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "elasticsearch" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > > To view this discussion on the web visit > > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com) > > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com?utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=footer](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/42a3fffb-97ee-43e1-be68-02cd44bd9a28%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer) > > . > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). > > -- > Nick Zadrozny > > Cofounder, CEO > One More Cloud > > [websolr.com](http://websolr.com) • [bonsai.io](http://bonsai.io) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/topic/elasticsearch/rumLatb020I/unsubscribe](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/elasticsearch/rumLatb020I/unsubscribe). > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > To view this discussion on the web visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAPTxa80VireENz2a9p2X246\_0pq3Yn\_Q7hZBb%3Ddh7NGuNe28LA%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAPTxa80VireENz2a9p2X246_0pq3Yn_Q7hZBb%3Ddh7NGuNe28LA%40mail.gmail.com) > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAPTxa80VireENz2a9p2X246\_0pq3Yn\_Q7hZBb%3Ddh7NGuNe28LA%40mail.gmail.com?utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=footer](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAPTxa80VireENz2a9p2X246_0pq3Yn_Q7hZBb%3Ddh7NGuNe28LA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer) > . > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). -- - N -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAMjEqJjOWF\_QbXbW\_KVKxfgo5eS6pHbWFT6xXuxTOGQEs8rEDw%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAMjEqJjOWF_QbXbW_KVKxfgo5eS6pHbWFT6xXuxTOGQEs8rEDw%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 12:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/best-practise-searching-complex-docs-with-elasticsearch/20350/4 "2017-07-06T00:54:54Z")