# Copy\_to parameter clarification?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/copy-to-parameter-clarification/75502>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 17, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/copy-to-parameter-clarification/75502 "2017-02-17T13:42:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Yaswanth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/94ad74/32.png) [@Yaswanth](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Yaswanth)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/copy-to-parameter-clarification/75502/1 "2017-02-17T13:42:55Z")

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Hi,

When i went through the `copy_to` parameter documentation in [elastic.co](http://elastic.co). It says  
`"The original _source field will not be modified to show the copied values"`

```
PUT /my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "my_type": {
      "properties": {
        "first_name": {
          "type": "string",
          "copy_to": "full_name" 
        },
        "last_name": {
          "type": "string",
          "copy_to": "full_name" 
        },
        "full_name": {
          "type": "string"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

```

It means for the above code `_source` won't have copied values (i.e."first\_name","last\_name") for the full\_name.  
Will be a problem when i am doing reindexing ?

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 2:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/copy-to-parameter-clarification/75502/2 "2017-02-17T14:02:11Z")

</div>

Yes. When reindexing if you don't have a similar mapping (copy\_to), then full\_name won't be generated. Unless you reindex through an ingest pipeline which creates this new field as a concatenation on the 2 other fields.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Yaswanth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/94ad74/32.png) [@Yaswanth](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Yaswanth)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/copy-to-parameter-clarification/75502/3 "2017-02-17T15:22:23Z")

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Thanks David

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/copy-to-parameter-clarification/75502/4 "2017-03-17T15:22:27Z")

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