# Filtering indices in URL? **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [July 26, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filtering-indices-in-url/56409 "2016-07-26T15:06:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![streamn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@streamn](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/streamn)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filtering-indices-in-url/56409/1 "2016-07-26T15:06:33Z")
Hello, my indices are named with the typical scheme -, like `mylogs-2016.07.26` Doing aggregations over time, I use the wildcard in the URL `mylogs-*` to select the indices, and then use a filter query to query since `now` I've tried to use the techniques described in [https://speakerdeck.com/polyfractal/elasticsearch-query-optimization](https://speakerdeck.com/polyfractal/elasticsearch-query-optimization) to cache the time range, but that only really help after the first query, and even, but when I only scan through one index (one day), there is a huge differnece between using the wildcard and using the actual full index name. So that works for one day, but I also want to query over multiple days, weeks, months... I tried to use lucene patterns in the URL, but that doesn't seem to work. I guess there is a way to use `_index` in the query itself, but the client I use uses the URL scheme to look up indices. So the question is: is there a way to be fancy with indices names in the URL? What's the proper syntax or where do i find help on this? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![danielmitterdorfer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/danielmitterdorfer/32/110510_2.png) [@danielmitterdorfer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielmitterdorfer)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 7:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filtering-indices-in-url/56409/2 "2016-07-27T07:11:28Z")
Hi @streamn, you can find the supported syntax in the [section 'multiple indices' in the reference documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/multi-index.html). In Elasticsearch 5.0 we will be able to cache the results of the indices that cover the middle of a range, even if you use "now". Example: you have daily indices and want to query from `now - 7d` until `now` (and "now" is "2016-07-27 09:00") the query will be rewritten so that the following matches in the indices `mylogs-2016-07-21` until `mylogs-2016-07-26` can be cached completely. Elasticsearch will run the actual query just against `mylogs-2016-07-20` and `mylogs-2016-07-27` which should also solve a lot of your problems. However, the first query will still hit all indices that you specify, that's just the nature of a cache. I hope that helps. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![streamn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@streamn](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/streamn)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filtering-indices-in-url/56409/3 "2016-07-28T07:14:39Z")
after experimenting a bit it seems totally impracticle: i end up with urls of 370chars+ and 404 errors all the time ---
**Author:** ![streamn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@streamn](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/streamn)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filtering-indices-in-url/56409/4 "2016-07-28T07:20:16Z")
maybe I'm missing something here: if I do a query now-7d until now, I still need to query mylogs-\* to cover all indices, otherwise I may not be querying all the data, right? then if I want to select the range of indices myself, to narrow it down, I end up with an index that looks like: `mylogs-2016.07.20,mylogs-2016.07.21,mylogs-2016.07.22,mylogs-2016.07.23,mylogs-2016.07.24,mylogs-2016.07.25,mylogs-2016.07.26,mylogs-2016.07.27` (my index name is actually already much longer as it include 2x 17chars ids back to back + the date) So the URL becomes a monster... is that what I'm supposed to do? ---
**Author:** ![danielmitterdorfer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/danielmitterdorfer/32/110510_2.png) [@danielmitterdorfer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielmitterdorfer)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filtering-indices-in-url/56409/5 "2016-07-28T07:46:15Z")
Hi @streamn, yes, the URL can become quite long. Now you could do all sorts of fancy logic on the client to select the relevant indices but to be honest I am not sure this is really worth the effort. As your actual goal is to speed up your queries (I guess), you could install the latest Elasticsearch 5.0 pre-release version in a test environment and just query over all indices (I've mentioned that we are able to cache large parts of range queries including "now"). Then you can still decide whether the speedup is significant enough for you so it pays off to migrate to 5.0 when it is out. Daniel ---
**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, 10:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filtering-indices-in-url/56409/6 "2017-07-05T22:32:15Z")