# Elastichsearch 1.7.3 - Array Field breaks and turns into String

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastichsearch-1-7-3-array-field-breaks-and-turns-into-string/43310>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 2, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastichsearch-1-7-3-array-field-breaks-and-turns-into-string/43310 "2016-03-02T21:30:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Weichselba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Christian\_Weichselba](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Weichselba)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastichsearch-1-7-3-array-field-breaks-and-turns-into-string/43310/1 "2016-03-02T21:30:48Z")

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Hi everyone!

I am using elasticsearch to store documents which also contain an array type. This array type works most of the time but at some point elasticsearch takes all it's elements and merges them into a single string.

So far I wasn't able to find a pattern as to when this happens.

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastichsearch-1-7-3-array-field-breaks-and-turns-into-string/43310/2 "2016-03-02T23:57:54Z")

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Did you map the field correctly? If not, what is the mapping now?

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Weichselba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Christian\_Weichselba](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Weichselba)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 12:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastichsearch-1-7-3-array-field-breaks-and-turns-into-string/43310/3 "2016-03-03T00:23:34Z")

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"\_accepts" : {  
"type" : "string",  
"dynamic" : false,  
"index" : "not\_analyzed",  
"store" : true  
},

it's initialized with []

and incremented with: ctx.\_source.\_accepts += elem

* * *

intermediary solution is now that I reconstruct the array for every new entry.

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**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 4:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastichsearch-1-7-3-array-field-breaks-and-turns-into-string/43310/4 "2016-03-03T04:43:26Z")

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Not sure about what you are doing with a full example but may be you want to use nested documents?

So mark your field as nested...

My 2 cents

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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 5, 2017, 11:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastichsearch-1-7-3-array-field-breaks-and-turns-into-string/43310/5 "2017-07-05T23:11:49Z")

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