# Can index pattern regex affect visualization data acquisition speed?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-index-pattern-regex-affect-visualization-data-acquisition-speed/103965>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [October 14, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-index-pattern-regex-affect-visualization-data-acquisition-speed/103965 "2017-10-14T00:02:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![joconner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/joconner/32/24360_2.png) [@joconner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/joconner)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-index-pattern-regex-affect-visualization-data-acquisition-speed/103965/1 "2017-10-14T00:02:46Z")

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I see lots of examples of index patterns for visualizations. Most of those patterns look like sometext\*. However, I've been using a system in which most of the patterns are \*sometext. What effect, if any, do these patterns have on how performant a visualization is? Can a pattern affect how quickly a chart acquires and renders its data?

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 8:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-index-pattern-regex-affect-visualization-data-acquisition-speed/103965/2 "2017-10-14T08:15:39Z")

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Leading wildcard queries is one of the worst types of queries for Elasticsearch as it basically results in the equivalent of a full table scan, so would be considerably slower queries with a trailing wildcard.

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**Author:** ![joconner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/joconner/32/24360_2.png) [@joconner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/joconner)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2017, 6:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-index-pattern-regex-affect-visualization-data-acquisition-speed/103965/3 "2017-10-16T18:11:42Z")

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Thanks Christian. Just to confirm: leading wildcards are slow; trailing wildcards are better and faster. In your response, I should replace "slower queries WITH a trailing wildcard" with "slower queries THAN a trailing wildcard?

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-index-pattern-regex-affect-visualization-data-acquisition-speed/103965/4 "2017-10-16T20:34:00Z")

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Leading wildcard queries are horribly slow and should be avoided at all costs. Training wildcard queries can still be slow. You may want to look into using [ngrams](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/5.6/analysis-ngram-tokenizer.html) instead of wildcards, as this typically is much faster while taking up more space on disk.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-index-pattern-regex-affect-visualization-data-acquisition-speed/103965/5 "2017-11-13T20:34:20Z")

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