# Bool.should.term.$field = $val not actually excluding documents
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/bool-should-term-field-val-not-actually-excluding-documents/67994
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [December 5, 2016, 7:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/bool-should-term-field-val-not-actually-excluding-documents/67994 "2016-12-05T07:42:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@josiahbryan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/josiahbryan)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2016, 7:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/bool-should-term-field-val-not-actually-excluding-documents/67994/1 "2016-12-05T07:42:24Z")
The gist below is a solid example of my "problem", I've tested this gist and it does reproduce the "problem". (Problem is in quotes because I'm probably just not doing the DSL right...)
Gist: [https://gist.github.com/josiahbryan/df828752aef7147da979828784e21bcc](https://gist.github.com/josiahbryan/df828752aef7147da979828784e21bcc)
To paraphrase, I have documents like:
{ officeid: 4, \_stringified: "foobar" }
{ officeid: 2, \_stringified: "foobar" }
{ officeid: null, \_stringified: "foobar" }
{ officeid: 0, \_stringified: "foobar" }
And basically I want to match
(\_stringified="foobar") AND (officeid=4 OR officeid=NULL OR officeid=0)
But when I do a \_search that I THINK says that, it gives me everything matching "foobar" and doesn't even pretend like I said anything about officeid.
Here's the search DSL. (multi\_match edited for readability, full multi\_match in the gist.)
```
GET /my_index/_search
{
"_source": ["_stringified","officeid"],
"query": {
"bool": {
"should": [
{
"term": {
"officeid": "4"
}
},
{
"bool": {
"must_not": {
"exists": {
"field": "officeid"
}
}
}
}
],
"must":[
{
"multi_match": {
"query": "josiah bryan",
"fields": ["_stringified"]
}
}
]
}
},
"highlight": {
"fields": {
"_stringified":{}
}
}
}
```
Basically, the sticker seems to be ... how do I do an OR clause where it's ($field=$value OR $field is empty)
The entire example is there in the gist ... and yes, that mapping schema is unwieldy ...I auto-generated it from my MySQL database schema ... you're welcome to critique that as well if needed, but I'm guessing my DSL is off somewhere.
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@josiahbryan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/josiahbryan)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2016, 8:01am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/bool-should-term-field-val-not-actually-excluding-documents/67994/2 "2016-12-05T08:01:28Z")
Gahhh!!! False alarm. Just had to move the "should" inside the "must". Updated the gist with the working DSL, but here's the DSL that actually works:
```
GET /my_index/_search
{
"_source": ["_stringified","officeid","officeid_string"],
"query": {
"bool": {
"must":[
{
"bool": {
"should": [
{
"term": {
"officeid": "4"
}
},
{
"bool": {
"must_not": {
"exists": {
"field": "officeid"
}
}
}
},
{
"term": {
"system": "1"
}
}
]
}
},
{
"multi_match": {
"query": "josiah bryan",
"fields": [
"_stringified",
"_stringified.english",
"_stringified.trigram",
"_stringified.autocomplete",
"_stringified.shingle",
"_stringified.shingle_english",
"_stringified.trigram_english",
"_stringified.autocomplete_english",
"_stringified.reverse",
"_stringified.keyword"
],
"type": "most_fields",
"fuzziness" : "AUTO"
}
}
]
}
},
"highlight": {
"fields": {
"_stringified":{}
}
}
}
```
---
### Author:  [@jimczi](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jimczi)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/bool-should-term-field-val-not-actually-excluding-documents/67994/3 "2016-12-06T14:45:15Z")