# Documents filtering
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [August 22, 2016, 9:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563 "2016-08-22T09:38:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Alkalit](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alkalit)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2016, 9:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563/1 "2016-08-22T09:38:57Z")
I'm pretty new in elasticsearch and I need help to compose search query.
I have index type under name "modelresult" wich contains a few indexed DB tables. The mapping [http://pastebin.com/G0AeXDFB](http://pastebin.com/G0AeXDFB)
I need to filter all ads (docs with django\_ct eq to "[ads.ad](http://ads.ad)") with condition:
(category1: filter1 OR filter2 OR filter3) AND (category2: filter4 OR filter5 OR filter6) AND (categoryN: OR ) AND (etc)
Where is category noted with fields - filters\_ids, filters\_names, filters\_slugs
and filter is - filters\_ids, filters\_names, filters\_slugs
(Ad can contain a multiple filters and hence a multiple categories)
Currently I'm using this query , but it's not I wanted.
Currently I use this query [http://pastebin.com/W6EHeJmx](http://pastebin.com/W6EHeJmx), but that's not what I need.
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563/2 "2016-08-23T08:29:42Z")
> [@Alkalit](#):
>
> (category1: filter1 OR filter2 OR filter3) AND (category2: filter4 OR filter5 OR filter6) AND (categoryN: OR ) AND (etc)
If we parse your top level expression which is `(..) AND (..) AND (..)` this can be represented as a `bool` query with a `must` array to hold the subclauses. Each of your subclauses is a list of alternative values for the same field so you can use the `terms` query to list them succinctly. This gives us the following:
```
GET test/_search
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{
"terms": {
"category1": ["filter1", "filter2", "filter3"]
}
},
{
"terms": {
"category2": ["filter4", "filter5", "filter6"]
}
}
]
}
}
}
```
This will work but we can improve on it because there are sections of this query we may not want to contribute to scoring results - it will take longer to compute and if we turn it into a `filter` expression elasticsearch can agressively cache its results as yes/no bits it can reuse in similar queries. To do this we can wrap the `terms` clauses under a `bool>filter` arrangement. See here for more: [Combining Filters | Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide [2.x] | Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/combining-filters.html)
---
### Author:  [@Alkalit](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alkalit)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 6:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563/3 "2016-08-25T06:31:04Z")
Hi. Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately I made a critical error in the question. The bottom line is that the categories to which belongs ad indicates a set of fields: filters\_categories\_ids, filters\_categories\_names and filters\_categories\_slugs. Thus, this answer does not fit as the index does not store a collection of categoryN fields.
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 7:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563/4 "2016-08-25T07:22:15Z")
I suggest you supply an example doc as JSON and your intended query written as pseudocode
---
### Author:  [@Alkalit](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alkalit)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563/5 "2016-08-25T13:16:17Z")
Thanks for taking time. Here is real document. Note - text data is mainly in russian.
[http://pastebin.com/zRFHRW3u](http://pastebin.com/zRFHRW3u)
Here is how I think it should work:
```auto
var1 = [category1, category2]
var2 = [filter1, filter2]
for doc in docs
if var1 is a subset of doc.filter_categories_ids
if any of var2 in doc.filters_ids
return True
```
P.S. sorry for my english.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/documents-filtering/58563/6 "2017-07-05T22:25:13Z")