# Decoding the on-disk representation of an ES index

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/decoding-the-on-disk-representation-of-an-es-index/16940>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 10, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/decoding-the-on-disk-representation-of-an-es-index/16940 "2014-04-10T22:16:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ajith\_Ramanathan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ajith_ramanathan/32/1649_2.png) [@Ajith\_Ramanathan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Ajith_Ramanathan)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/decoding-the-on-disk-representation-of-an-es-index/16940/1 "2014-04-10T22:16:44Z")

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Hey guys. I have two instances of what should be the same index (one of  
those datacenter redundancy things). I send the same updates to both DCs.  
However the two indices appear to be different (for example the same query  
returns a different set of results and has a different number of hits).  
This might have something to do with deviations in the mappings (I've been  
hacking on it quite a bit). In particular, I sent identical updates to  
both DCs but the mappings were slightly different (for example, only one DC  
had a particular nested object in its mapping). We allow dynamic mapping.

I'm at a loss to figure out how to debug this. I'd like the ability to  
diff the two indices and obtain a sampling of the differences. I'd also  
like to examine the transaction log pertaining to a given document to check  
if something funky happened. It would also be helpful if I could dump  
portions of the index directly. Is there a command line tool that would  
let me dump portions of the index in a decoded form? I'm looking for  
things like posting lists, dictionaries, bloom filter contents etc.

Or there might be a nicer way to figure out what happened to the two  
indices.

Cheers,  
Ajith

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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:** [July 6, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/decoding-the-on-disk-representation-of-an-es-index/16940/2 "2017-07-06T01:36:44Z")

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