# Fielddata: use or not to use
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fielddata-use-or-not-to-use/71402
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [January 12, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fielddata-use-or-not-to-use/71402 "2017-01-12T15:55:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Gamer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Gamer)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fielddata-use-or-not-to-use/71402/1 "2017-01-12T15:55:10Z")
Hello!
Firstly, I had a simple wish to enable the field sorting in Kibana. But as I was reading the docs and how-tos it proved to be a rather difficult choice. I learned that fielddata's needed to be turned on, on top of that through some API tricks, that it can and will affect the memory on the server, that some fields can be messed up if you do your query not having thought it up enough and all the more various stuff.
In the end I'm afraid to use fielddata without fully understanding the consequences. Damn, and I just wanted to sort field values, why does a so basic, basic feature have to be implemented with so much difficulty?!
Anyway, I've got several questions about fielddata:
1. Is there a simple and safe way to turn on sorting of text fields? Without using fielddata, I mean.
2. In that ([https://www.elastic.co/blog/support-in-the-wild-my-biggest-elasticsearch-problem-at-scale](https://www.elastic.co/blog/support-in-the-wild-my-biggest-elasticsearch-problem-at-scale)) article it's said that fieldddata can consume up to 60% of heap memory and that once loaded it keeps its presence indefinitely. Is that so by now? Is there a way to make a rotation of consumed memory (e.g. wiping the old data from the memory)?
Could somebody give me some knowledge on that, please? Thanks!
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### Author:  [@lukas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/lukas)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fielddata-use-or-not-to-use/71402/2 "2017-01-12T23:28:51Z")
Hmm, this question might actually be better suited for the [Elasticsearch](https://discuss.elastic.co/c/elasticsearch) forums, as they will be able to give more detail as to the recommended ways to configure Elasticsearch to accomplish what you want.
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### Author:  [@Gamer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Gamer)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2017, 7:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fielddata-use-or-not-to-use/71402/3 "2017-01-13T07:26:56Z")
Ok then, I'll move the topic.
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### Author:  [@Gamer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Gamer)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fielddata-use-or-not-to-use/71402/4 "2017-01-17T15:15:50Z")
Anyone?
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fielddata-use-or-not-to-use/71402/5 "2017-02-14T15:16:09Z")
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