# General Syntax rules - Any document specifying?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 18, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876 "2014-02-18T17:49:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tony\_Su](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Tony\_Su](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tony_Su)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/1 "2014-02-18T17:49:08Z")

</div>

I've been curious about what I've been seeing and experimenting with...

- There seems to be no set rule whether to use double-quotes or single  
quotes, they seem to work interchangeably for all commands using curl or  
http. Or, more expectedly can be omitted altogether if the string contains  
no spaces.

- Camel case (or more specifically upper case) is not supported throughout  
for anything not a label. Seems to still work (thankfully) for labels like  
hostnames.

- Also, might be more of a JSON syntax standard but I'm finding spaces and  
tabs between operands are optional and don't affect whether the statement  
will work or not.

There might be others?

Tony

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**Author:** ![brian\_yoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f1d935/32.png) [@brian\_yoder](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/brian_yoder)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/2 "2014-02-18T19:44:22Z")

</div>

Tony,

(1) Your first question seems to be about the curl command. If so, then it  
follows shell script rules. In most Unix shell scripts, double-quotes  
preserve spaces and such, but allow for variable substitution. Sngle-quotes  
also preserve spaces but do not allow variable substitution and preserve  
all characters as-is. Example:

export FIELD=\_all

curl -XGET "[http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/%24FIELD/_mapping)" is converted by the  
shell to: curl -XGET [http://localhost:9200/\_all/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/_all/_mapping)

curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/%24FIELD/_mapping)' is converted by the  
shell to: curl -XGET [http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/%24FIELD/_mapping)

So single quotes are usually preferred so that the & and ? characters in  
URL parameter lists are not interpreted as shell characters. But if you  
want to parameterize a curl command, you may need to use double-quotes for  
parts, and single-quotes for the other parts. This is all standard shell  
programming.

(2) Camel case is OK for hostnames because hostnames are typically  
insensitive. But JSON and ES are case-sensitive.

(3) This is a JSON standard. {"field":"name"} and { "field" : "name" } are  
the same, but one or the other is prettier.

Brian

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**Author:** ![Tony\_Su](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Tony\_Su](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tony_Su)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/3 "2014-02-18T21:26:06Z")

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Thx for the complete answer.

Tony

On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 11:44:22 AM UTC-8, InquiringMind wrote:

> Tony,
> 
> (1) Your first question seems to be about the curl command. If so, then it  
> follows shell script rules. In most Unix shell scripts, double-quotes  
> preserve spaces and such, but allow for variable substitution. Sngle-quotes  
> also preserve spaces but do not allow variable substitution and preserve  
> all characters as-is. Example:
> 
> export FIELD=\_all
> 
> curl -XGET "[http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/_mapping)" is converted by the  
> shell to: curl -XGET [http://localhost:9200/\_all/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/_all/_mapping)
> 
> curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/_mapping)' is converted by the  
> shell to: curl -XGET [http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/_mapping)
> 
> So single quotes are usually preferred so that the & and ? characters in  
> URL parameter lists are not interpreted as shell characters. But if you  
> want to parameterize a curl command, you may need to use double-quotes for  
> parts, and single-quotes for the other parts. This is all standard shell  
> programming.
> 
> (2) Camel case is OK for hostnames because hostnames are typically  
> insensitive. But JSON and ES are case-sensitive.
> 
> (3) This is a JSON standard. {"field":"name"} and { "field" : "name"  
> } are the same, but one or the other is prettier.
> 
> Brian

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**Author:** ![Tony\_Su](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Tony\_Su](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tony_Su)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/4 "2014-02-18T23:08:23Z")

</div>

Curious...

Since JSON and ES do not support upper case,  
Would this possibly cause some confusion about bits/Bytes and milli/Mega?

Should it be assumed therefor that ES never supports bits and milli? That  
the lower case abbreviations will always apply to the normally capitalized  
measures Bytes and Mega?

Thx,  
Tony

On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 1:26:06 PM UTC-8, Tony Su wrote:

> Thx for the complete answer.
> 
> Tony
> 
> On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 11:44:22 AM UTC-8, InquiringMind wrote:
> 
> > Tony,
> > 
> > (1) Your first question seems to be about the curl command. If so, then  
> > it follows shell script rules. In most Unix shell scripts, double-quotes  
> > preserve spaces and such, but allow for variable substitution. Sngle-quotes  
> > also preserve spaces but do not allow variable substitution and preserve  
> > all characters as-is. Example:
> > 
> > export FIELD=\_all
> > 
> > curl -XGET "[http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/_mapping)" is converted by the  
> > shell to: curl -XGET [http://localhost:9200/\_all/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/_all/_mapping)
> > 
> > curl -XGET '[http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/_mapping)' is converted by the  
> > shell to: curl -XGET [http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/\_mapping](http://localhost:9200/$FIELD/_mapping)
> > 
> > So single quotes are usually preferred so that the & and ? characters in  
> > URL parameter lists are not interpreted as shell characters. But if you  
> > want to parameterize a curl command, you may need to use double-quotes for  
> > parts, and single-quotes for the other parts. This is all standard shell  
> > programming.
> > 
> > (2) Camel case is OK for hostnames because hostnames are typically  
> > insensitive. But JSON and ES are case-sensitive.
> > 
> > (3) This is a JSON standard. {"field":"name"} and { "field" : "name"  
> > } are the same, but one or the other is prettier.
> > 
> > Brian

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**Author:** ![brian\_yoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f1d935/32.png) [@brian\_yoder](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/brian_yoder)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/5 "2014-02-18T23:12:16Z")

</div>

Tony,

JSON and ES both support uppercase. It's just that "FOO" and "foo" are two  
completely different field names. Hence, case-sensitive.

In some contexts, ES does not support uppercase. For example, names of  
indices. But field names can be in lowercase, uppercase, or mixed case. I  
believe that the docs cover this well already.

For distance units, ES will soon support NM for nautical miles. Hence,  
12.3nm is reserved for 12.3 nanometers, while 12.3NM will mean 12.3  
nautical miles.

Brian

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**Author:** ![Tony\_Su](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Tony\_Su](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tony_Su)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 12:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/6 "2014-02-19T00:26:51Z")

</div>

OK,  
Was just thrown when I see "mb" represent MegaBytes in elasticsearch.yml

Tony

On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 3:12:16 PM UTC-8, InquiringMind wrote:

> Tony,
> 
> JSON and ES both support uppercase. It's just that "FOO" and "foo" are two  
> completely different field names. Hence, case-sensitive.
> 
> In some contexts, ES does not support uppercase. For example, names of  
> indices. But field names can be in lowercase, uppercase, or mixed case. I  
> believe that the docs cover this well already.
> 
> For distance units, ES will soon support NM for nautical miles. Hence,  
> 12.3nm is reserved for 12.3 nanometers, while 12.3NM will mean 12.3  
> nautical miles.
> 
> Brian

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**Author:** ![brian\_yoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f1d935/32.png) [@brian\_yoder](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/brian_yoder)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 3:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/7 "2014-02-19T03:31:57Z")

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Hmmmm. I see that the  
src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/common/unit/ByteSizeUnit.java file defines  
the units by uppercase enum name (e.g. `MB`), while the comments inside the  
config/elasticsearch.yml file suggest lowercase (e.g. `mb`).

Perhaps there's an issue? Or am I reading something incorrectly?

Brian

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**Author:** ![Binh\_Ly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce7236/32.png) [@Binh\_Ly](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Binh_Ly)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/8 "2014-02-19T13:51:17Z")

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Should be fine, it is converted to lowercase in code. 🙂

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**Author:** ![brian\_yoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f1d935/32.png) [@brian\_yoder](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/brian_yoder)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/9 "2014-02-19T14:02:33Z")

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Ah, ok! I couldn't find it in the code, but I only did a quick check.  
However, TimeValue and DistanceUnit are both case-sensitive.

Thanks for confirming!

Brian

On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 8:51:17 AM UTC-5, Binh Ly wrote:

> Should be fine, it is converted to lowercase in code. 🙂

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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 6, 2017, 1:49am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-syntax-rules-any-document-specifying/15876/10 "2017-07-06T01:49:04Z")

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