# Determining unique number of entries in a termsFacet, passing that to date-histogram-facet

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/determining-unique-number-of-entries-in-a-termsfacet-passing-that-to-date-histogram-facet/7030>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 16, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/determining-unique-number-of-entries-in-a-termsfacet-passing-that-to-date-histogram-facet/7030 "2012-03-16T15:43:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Peter\_Dietz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/peter_dietz/32/2955_2.png) [@Peter\_Dietz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Peter_Dietz)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/determining-unique-number-of-entries-in-a-termsfacet-passing-that-to-date-histogram-facet/7030/1 "2012-03-16T15:43:37Z")

</div>

I'm trying to build a dashboard that has the number of unique visitors  
(unique ipAddress) that we've gotten per day.

I'm using a date-histogram-facet to handle the dates/intervals. The  
problem, is that I can't just interval over the range, and select the total  
number of IP's, because every hit has an IP address. I want the  
value\_script (more-or-less) to be able to determine the number of unique IP  
addresses within that interval, then all that data is in the  
date-histogram-facet, and I'm happy.

If it were possible to put a facet inside of a facet, that would get me  
there, but somewhat messy. That would solve this guys  
need: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/elasticsearch/tSgZNU6b87o](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/elasticsearch/tSgZNU6b87o)  
Because even with the termsFacet of all ipAddresses inside of my date  
intervals, then I have all the IP address, and all of their counts for the  
interval, but I just want the termsFacetEntry.size(), which equates to the  
number of unique IP addresses.

```
{ 
    "time": 201200101, 
    [ { "term": "192.168.1.1", "count": 10 }, 
        { "term": "8.8.4.4", "count": 8 },
        { "term": "128.146.173.9", "count": 5 },
    ] 
} 

```

Which is why I'm thinking if value\_script could be more clever, and I could  
tell that to use something like doc['IP'].uniques, then that would solve my  
problem. Otherwise invent a new field that can take a  
uniqueTerms().field("ip"). I would delegate the actual working of this to  
people more versed on conventions.  
{  
"time": 201200101, "count" : 23, "uniqueTerms['IP']" : 3  
}

I'm pretty happy with Elastic Search, but there's a few of these edge  
cases, where we're having trouble swapping out one implementation for  
another.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [March 17, 2012, 10:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/determining-unique-number-of-entries-in-a-termsfacet-passing-that-to-date-histogram-facet/7030/2 "2012-03-17T10:21:33Z")

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Hi,

Yea, you can't do it with elasticsearch. I would certainly love to have  
it there (at one point), but its very very tricky to implement in a  
distributed environment (unique counts)...

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Peter Dietz [pdietz84@gmail.com](mailto:pdietz84@gmail.com) wrote:

> I'm trying to build a dashboard that has the number of unique visitors  
> (unique ipAddress) that we've gotten per day.
> 
> I'm using a date-histogram-facet to handle the dates/intervals. The  
> problem, is that I can't just interval over the range, and select the total  
> number of IP's, because every hit has an IP address. I want the  
> value\_script (more-or-less) to be able to determine the number of unique IP  
> addresses within that interval, then all that data is in the  
> date-histogram-facet, and I'm happy.
> 
> If it were possible to put a facet inside of a facet, that would get me  
> there, but somewhat messy. That would solve this guys need:  
> [Redirecting to Google Groups](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/elasticsearch/tSgZNU6b87o)  
> Because even with the termsFacet of all ipAddresses inside of my date  
> intervals, then I have all the IP address, and all of their counts for the  
> interval, but I just want the termsFacetEntry.size(), which equates to the  
> number of unique IP addresses.
> 
> ```
> {
> "time": 201200101,
> [ { "term": "192.168.1.1", "count": 10 },
> { "term": "8.8.4.4", "count": 8 },
> { "term": "128.146.173.9", "count": 5 },
> ]
> }
> 
> ```
> 
> Which is why I'm thinking if value\_script could be more clever, and I  
> could tell that to use something like doc['IP'].uniques, then that would  
> solve my problem. Otherwise invent a new field that can take a  
> uniqueTerms().field("ip"). I would delegate the actual working of this to  
> people more versed on conventions.  
> {  
> "time": 201200101, "count" : 23, "uniqueTerms['IP']" : 3  
> }
> 
> I'm pretty happy with Elastic Search, but there's a few of these edge  
> cases, where we're having trouble swapping out one implementation for  
> another.

---

<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:** [July 6, 2017, 3:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/determining-unique-number-of-entries-in-a-termsfacet-passing-that-to-date-histogram-facet/7030/3 "2017-07-06T03:35:47Z")

</div>