# Boolean query vs filters and more **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [August 16, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225 "2010-08-16T20:44:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Andrei](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/andrei/32/2856_2.png) [@Andrei](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrei)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/1 "2010-08-16T20:44:01Z")
Hi, I've just started using ElasticSearch and so far it's been fairly easy to get going with. However, I have a couple of questions that came up during the course of development: 1. I need to find docs where a string field contains a keyword, but restricted by an integer field matching a given value. Is it better to use the "bool" query feature (with sub-queries for string and integer portions), or do the string query with a filter? 2. Is it possible to specify multiple fields to search for a given keyword? So far I've been using \_all, but sometimes I need to change which fields I'm matching in dynamically and \_all is predetermined by the mapping. Thank you, -Andrei ---
**Author:** ![Lukas\_Vlcek1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/lukas_vlcek1/32/819_2.png) [@Lukas\_Vlcek1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Lukas_Vlcek1)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/2 "2010-08-16T21:00:04Z")
Hi, On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 10:44 PM, Andrei [andrei@zmievski.org](mailto:andrei@zmievski.org) wrote: > Hi, > > I've just started using Elasticsearch and so far it's been fairly easy > to get going with. However, I have a couple of questions that came up > during the course of development: > > 1. I need to find docs where a string field contains a keyword, but > restricted by an integer field matching a given value. Is it better > to use the "bool" query feature (with sub-queries for string and > integer portions), or do the string query with a filter? Filters perform better because they do not perform scoring. So I think in your case the filtering is way to go. > 1. Is it possible to specify multiple fields to search for a given > keyword? So far I've been using \_all, but sometimes I need to change > which fields I'm matching in dynamically and \_all is predetermined by > the mapping. I think you can use bool[http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/bool\_query/](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/bool_query/) query and combine several query\_string[http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/query\_string\_query/](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/query_string_query/)queries with default\_field specified accordingly (or you can combine field[http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/field\_query/](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/field_query/)queries). > Thank you, > > -Andrei Regards, Lukas ---
**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 6:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/3 "2010-08-17T06:54:42Z")
On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:00 AM, Lukáš Vlček [lukas.vlcek@gmail.com](mailto:lukas.vlcek@gmail.com) wrote: > Hi, > > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 10:44 PM, Andrei [andrei@zmievski.org](mailto:andrei@zmievski.org) wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I've just started using Elasticsearch and so far it's been fairly easy > > to get going with. However, I have a couple of questions that came up > > during the course of development: > > > > 1. I need to find docs where a string field contains a keyword, but > > restricted by an integer field matching a given value. Is it better > > to use the "bool" query feature (with sub-queries for string and > > integer portions), or do the string query with a filter? > > Filters perform better because they do not perform scoring. So I think in > your case the filtering is way to go. Yep, filters are the best way to go here. Much faster, and easily cacheable. > > 1. Is it possible to specify multiple fields to search for a given > > keyword? So far I've been using \_all, but sometimes I need to change > > which fields I'm matching in dynamically and \_all is predetermined by > > the mapping. > > I think you can use bool[http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/bool\_query/](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/bool_query/) query > and combine several query\_string[http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/query\_string\_query/](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/query_string_query/)queries with default\_field specified accordingly (or you can combine > field[http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/field\_query/](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/field_query/)queries). Actually, if you use query\_string, then it allows you to define several fields for it to execute on. Check out the bottom part of the docs here: [http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/query\_string\_query/](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/query_string_query/) . > > Thank you, > > > > -Andrei > > Regards, > Lukas ---
**Author:** ![Andrei](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/andrei/32/2856_2.png) [@Andrei](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrei)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/4 "2010-08-17T17:56:07Z")
Great, that lets me eliminate the \_all field then. Also, does ES support indexing non-English text? -Andrei On Aug 16, 11:54 pm, Shay Banon [shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com](mailto:shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com) wrote: > Actually, if you use query\_string, then it allows you to define several > fields for it to execute on. Check out the bottom part of the docs here:[http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/qu](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/qu)... ---
**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/5 "2010-08-17T18:25:46Z")
It depends on the \_all field. For the price of storing more data in the index, you can get much better results in terms of query performance (comparing \_all to X files query). -shay.banon On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:56 PM, Andrei [andrei@zmievski.org](mailto:andrei@zmievski.org) wrote: > Great, that lets me eliminate the \_all field then. > > Also, does ES support indexing non-English text? > > -Andrei > > On Aug 16, 11:54 pm, Shay Banon [shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com](mailto:shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com) wrote: > > > Actually, if you use query\_string, then it allows you to define several > > fields for it to execute on. Check out the bottom part of the docs here: > > [http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/qu](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/qu)... ---
**Author:** ![Andrei](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/andrei/32/2856_2.png) [@Andrei](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrei)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/6 "2010-08-17T19:40:58Z")
I currently only search against 3 fields, so that's what my \_all would contain. The total length of 3 fields is likely to be 300 to 1000 characters. -Andrei On Aug 17, 11:25 am, Shay Banon [shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com](mailto:shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com) wrote: > It depends on the \_all field. For the price of storing more data in the > index, you can get much better results in terms of query performance > (comparing \_all to X files query). > > -shay.banon ---
**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/7 "2010-08-17T19:45:01Z")
Then that might make sense, really depends on the latency of you require from your searches. \_all field causes larger index and slower indexing time, but usually results in faster queries when trying to match on several fields. In your case, it sounds like \_all field is not needed, but I would run a simple test to see the difference in expected queries. -shay.banon On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 10:40 PM, Andrei [andrei@zmievski.org](mailto:andrei@zmievski.org) wrote: > I currently only search against 3 fields, so that's what my \_all would > contain. The total length of 3 fields is likely to be 300 to 1000 > characters. > > -Andrei > > On Aug 17, 11:25 am, Shay Banon [shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com](mailto:shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com) wrote: > > > It depends on the \_all field. For the price of storing more data in the > > index, you can get much better results in terms of query performance > > (comparing \_all to X files query). > > > > -shay.banon ---
**Author:** ![Andrei](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/andrei/32/2856_2.png) [@Andrei](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrei)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/8 "2010-08-17T21:19:15Z")
Will do. Is there a good way to time ES queries aside from just timing the curl request? -Andrei On Aug 17, 12:45 pm, Shay Banon [shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com](mailto:shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com) wrote: > Then that might make sense, really depends on the latency of you require > from your searches. \_all field causes larger index and slower indexing time, > but usually results in faster queries when trying to match on several > fields. In your case, it sounds like \_all field is not needed, but I would > run a simple test to see the difference in expected queries. > > -shay.banon ---
**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/9 "2010-08-17T22:11:42Z")
Thats pretty much it, though I think you should time it based on how you plan to actually invoke it in production (from the lang you plan to use, and so on). -shay.banon On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:19 AM, Andrei [andrei@zmievski.org](mailto:andrei@zmievski.org) wrote: > Will do. Is there a good way to time ES queries aside from just timing > the curl request? > > -Andrei > > On Aug 17, 12:45 pm, Shay Banon [shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com](mailto:shay.ba...@elasticsearch.com) wrote: > > > Then that might make sense, really depends on the latency of you require > > from your searches. \_all field causes larger index and slower indexing > > time, > > but usually results in faster queries when trying to match on several > > fields. In your case, it sounds like \_all field is not needed, but I > > would > > run a simple test to see the difference in expected queries. > > > > -shay.banon ---
**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, 4:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/boolean-query-vs-filters-and-more/3225/10 "2017-07-06T04:20:39Z")