# Exact + partial match of text documents (with bool query?)

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/exact-partial-match-of-text-documents-with-bool-query/218454>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 9, 2020, 12:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/exact-partial-match-of-text-documents-with-bool-query/218454 "2020-02-09T00:15:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hao9850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@hao9850](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hao9850)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2020, 12:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/exact-partial-match-of-text-documents-with-bool-query/218454/1 "2020-02-09T00:15:54Z")

</div>

Hi friends! I am building a news search engine and need a way to construct ES queries that delivers relevant results. Currently, I am using a combination of `must` and `should` clauses in a bool query for every news topic a user searches. My query looks as follows (written with `elasticsearch_dsl` in Python):

```auto
from elasticsearch import Elasticsearch
from elasticsearch_dsl import Search, MultiSearch, Q
...
self.search = self.search.query(
        "bool",
        must=[
            Q(
                "multi_match",
                query="Andrew Yang",
                fields=["title", "summary"],
                type="best_fields",
                tie_breaker=0.5
            )
        ],
        should=[
            Q(
                "multi_match",
                query="New Hampshire debate",
                fields=["title", "summary"],
                type="best_fields",
                tie_breaker=1.0
            ),
            Q(
                "multi_match",
                query="election",
                fields=["title", "summary"],
                type="best_fields",
                tie_breaker=1.0
            ),
            ...
        ],
        minimum_should_match=self.min_should_match
    )

```

I initially wished that this query will match exactly the `query` in `must` (in this example, `"Andrew Yang"`) and will attempt to match as many documents with queries words in `should` as possible. However, it appears to me that Elasticsearch is not doing strict / exact match with search terms in the `must` clause. This brings up problems when two entirely different news topics have partially similar keywords (for example, `Andrew Yang` and `Prince Andrew`) as when user search one of them, the other has the potential to appear as well..

My question: is there a way to do both exact match one or more certain keywords (let's call them group one keywords) and partial match (like `multi-match` in the `should` clauses) of some other keywords (let's call them group two keywords) in a single query so that results returned will **definitely** contain every group one keyword while trying to match as many group two keywords as possible? If so, what's the best way to structure such a query (so that it's not terribly inefficient)?

P.S. Both the `title` and `summary` fields are indexed with `type=text` (standard analyzer). Here is the full mapping that I am currently using:

```auto
NEWS_INDEX_MAPPING = {
    "mappings": {
        "properties": {
            "title": { "type": "text" },  
            "source": {"type": "keyword"},
            "category": {"type": "text"},
            "id": { "type": "keyword" },
            "summary": { "type": "text" }, 
            "url": { "type": "keyword" },
            "published_date": { "type": "keyword" },
            "img_url": { "type": "text" },
            "views": {"type": "long"},
            "avg_rating": {"type": "float"},
            "num_rated": {"type": "long"}
        }
    }
}

```

Will appreciate any suggestion / comment! Thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![askids](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/askids/32/22252_2.png) [@askids](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/askids)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/exact-partial-match-of-text-documents-with-bool-query/218454/2 "2020-02-09T18:02:32Z")

</div>

By default multi word search runs as an OR condition. Use the "operator" : "and" with your query to ensure that all words in input are being matched. Please note that this is not applicable when searching on name, but with fields split as first name and last name.

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<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:** [March 8, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/exact-partial-match-of-text-documents-with-bool-query/218454/3 "2020-03-08T18:02:38Z")

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