# Fetching position of keyword in matched document **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [July 24, 2017, 9:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291 "2017-07-24T09:27:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hugo53](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hugo53/32/24588_2.png) [@hugo53](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hugo53)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 9:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291/1 "2017-07-24T09:27:17Z")
Hello there, I'm trying to highlight searched keyword in matched document with some custom works. Therefore, I need to know position (or offset) of that keyword in document. However, I found no documentation showing clearly how to do that. I know that when set "index\_options" to "offsets" or "term\_vector" to "with\_positions\_offsets", position for token will be generated and is stored together with token, but I don't know how to fetch those values. Please give me some suggestions. Any help would be appreciated! ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Harwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mark_harwood/32/10538_2.png) [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 10:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291/2 "2017-07-24T10:34:38Z")
See term vectors API [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/docs-termvectors.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/docs-termvectors.html) ---
**Author:** ![hugo53](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hugo53/32/24588_2.png) [@hugo53](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hugo53)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291/3 "2017-07-25T01:31:01Z")
Thank you Mark for your support. It's useful but seems we need to do multi-steps to get those information, like: Step 1: Get term vector of document Step 2: Filter search keyword from result of step 1 So, in the case with query: ``` curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/my_index/_search?pretty' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d' { "query": { "match": { "text": "brown fox" } }, "highlight": { "fields": { "text": {} } } } ``` I would like to know if we can get offset position in result (for example in highlight, because elastic engine has ability to return highlighted text with pre & post tags, I assume that it knows text positions), so we don't need extra step. ``` { "took" : 113, "timed_out" : false, "_shards" : { "total" : 5, "successful" : 5, "failed" : 0 }, "hits" : { "total" : 1, "max_score" : 0.5063205, "hits" : [ { "_index" : "my_index", "_type" : "my_type", "_id" : "1", "_score" : 0.5063205, "_source" : { "text" : "Quick brown fox" }, "highlight" : { "text" : [ "Quick brown fox" ] } } ] } } ``` Thank you again Mark! ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Harwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mark_harwood/32/10538_2.png) [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 9:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291/4 "2017-07-25T09:17:21Z")
You can supply custom markup tags e.g.instead of `` you could have `` but this won't return the offsets. I expect the most likely solution would be to implement a custom highlighter plugin (see [example](https://github.com/wikimedia/search-highlighter)) because these are given the resources you need to get hold of the query tokens and the document contents. With some custom code you could return the required output. ---
**Author:** ![hugo53](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hugo53/32/24588_2.png) [@hugo53](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hugo53)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 10:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291/5 "2017-07-25T10:23:44Z")
Thank Mark for mentioning the plugin. I'm going to try it. Btw, I found this issue [https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/5736](https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/5736), still open for more than 3 years, hope next releases will implement this helpful feature. ---
**Author:** ![hugo53](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hugo53/32/24588_2.png) [@hugo53](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hugo53)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291/6 "2017-07-29T03:52:45Z")
Finally, by using [search-highlighter](https://github.com/wikimedia/search-highlighter) plugin, I can get highlight text offset, by query for example: ``` curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/_search?pretty' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d' { "_source": ["content"], "query" : { "match_phrase" : { "content" : "test keyword" } }, "highlight" : { "pre_tags" : [""], "post_tags" : [""], "fields" : { "content" : { "fragment_size" : 30, "number_of_fragments" : 10, "type": "experimental", "options": {"return_offsets": true} } }, "order" : "score" } } ' ``` Thank you @Mark_Harwood for your help! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fetching-position-of-keyword-in-matched-document/94291/7 "2017-08-26T03:52:52Z")
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