# Doing simple Lucene-ish things **URL:** \ **Category:** Elastic Search\ **Created:** [May 8, 2026, 9:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/doing-simple-lucene-ish-things/386250 "2026-05-08T21:46:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rik](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rik/32/147516_2.png) [@rik](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rik)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 9:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/doing-simple-lucene-ish-things/386250/1 "2026-05-08T21:46:06Z")
hi all, first time using ES discuss. (And I posted the same question to ES slack as I don't know where this community mostly hangs?) At the moment I'm using trial ES serverless resources, and the python API. I used to know Lucene pretty well, and trying to do things that used to be straight-forward, eg: How can I get the full list of keyword/tokens in an index for fields `text` and `desc` and iterate over them to get document counts? How about if it is a named entity recognition index with keywords put in `ner_desc.entities.entity` ? Thanks for any hints, eg pointers to how/if ES reveals lower-level Lucene features. ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 9:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/doing-simple-lucene-ish-things/386250/2 "2026-05-19T09:38:45Z")
> [@rik](#): > > Thanks for any hints, eg pointers to how/if ES reveals lower-level Lucene features. As far as I know Elasticsearch does not expose lower level Lucene features. ---
**Author:** ![thecoop](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thecoop/32/114813_2.png) [@thecoop](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thecoop)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2026, 10:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/doing-simple-lucene-ish-things/386250/3 "2026-05-20T10:02:00Z")
Great question - I want to push back on an assumption I think you've made. Elasticsearch is not a _wrapper_ of Lucene, in that it takes Lucene and puts a REST interface on top of it. Elasticsearch is implemented _using_ Lucene. There's many, many aspects of Elasticsearch that extend, complement, or replace functionality provided by Lucene. As such, Lucene doesn't really 'exist' as a separate standalone 'thing' within Elasticsearch. So there are no features of Lucene that can be exposed separately to what Elasticsearch exposes - everything is done by Elasticsearch, using many areas of functionality of Lucene to do so, but not as Elasticsearch-wrapping-Lucene. Some Lucene concepts don't make sense in Elasticsearch due to how we've implemented something. Some other things map pretty well onto underlying Lucene functionality. And some are entirely Elasticsearch-only, not really using Lucene. You can't really split them up from outside Elasticsearch. Hope that makes sense ---
**Author:** ![rik](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rik/32/147516_2.png) [@rik](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rik)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2026, 12:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/doing-simple-lucene-ish-things/386250/4 "2026-05-22T00:52:25Z")
SImon, thanks very much for your thoughtful response. the more i work with ES the more I appreciate all the things it is trying to do, far beyond Lucene search. it would be some pointers to how functionality is divided up, according to you: - Some Lucene concepts don't make sense in Elasticsearch due to how we've implemented something. - Some other things map pretty well onto underlying Lucene functionality. - And some are entirely Elasticsearch-only, I'd really appreciate pointers to design docs that let me know which is which. here's a simple example: I was looking for access to (what I recall Lucene calling; no access to Lucene doc this minute) the Vocabulary: a full enumeration of all assigned keywords. I wound up writing a script that accomplishes this, but wonder if I did it right.