# Dereference arrays in painless script field

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dereference-arrays-in-painless-script-field/258382>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** painless\
**Created:** [December 11, 2020, 7:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dereference-arrays-in-painless-script-field/258382 "2020-12-11T07:59:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wsalembi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/wsalembi/32/80679_2.png) [@wsalembi](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/wsalembi)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2020, 7:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dereference-arrays-in-painless-script-field/258382/1 "2020-12-11T07:59:20Z")

</div>

Given following document

```auto
    {
        "addresses": [ {"city": "New York"},
                                    {"city": "Brussels" } ]
    }

```

Is it possible to dereference the first element in the array using a painless script filter? All queries I tried did crash. E.g. I want to create a scripted field firstCity like `doc['addresses'][0]['city']`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ylasri](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ylasri/32/86120_2.png) [@ylasri](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ylasri)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dereference-arrays-in-painless-script-field/258382/2 "2020-12-18T17:33:30Z")

</div>

Try this

```auto
params['_source']['addresses'][1]['city']

```

---

<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:** [January 15, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dereference-arrays-in-painless-script-field/258382/3 "2021-01-15T17:33:38Z")

</div>

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