# Help improving this query before it explodes!

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-improving-this-query-before-it-explodes/266544>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 8, 2021, 11:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-improving-this-query-before-it-explodes/266544 "2021-03-08T11:38:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![doctor](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/doctor/32/64648_2.png) [@doctor](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/doctor)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 11:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-improving-this-query-before-it-explodes/266544/1 "2021-03-08T11:38:16Z")

</div>

Hey,

I made a working request but it kinda sucks ! Was wondering if a pleasing soul could help me get to something better...

### The problem

Lets say I have 2 types of documents for simplicty's sake.

- The type `square` and `oval` have a `uuid` key which acts as a primary key.

- The type `shape_info` also uses the `uuid` key but the document is optional.

Now, I would like to search for all `UUIDs` documents that **don't already** have a `type`: `shape_info`.

For instance, with the following document:

```
{
    "type": "shape_info",
    "uuid": "zzzz"
}

```

**I would like all documents with** `uuid`: `zzzz` **to be excluded** as this `uuid` has `shape_info` document.

### What I did

To achieve this I had to do 2 requests:

```
{
   "size": 0,
    "query": {
        "bool": {
            "must": [
                {
                    "terms": {
                        "type.keyword": ["shape_info"]
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    },
    "aggs": {
        "uuids": {
            "composite": {
                "size": 50,
                "sources": [
                    {"myfield": {"terms": {"field": "uuid.keyword"}}}
                ]
            }
        }
    }
}

```

=\> This returns the list of `uuids` that have the `type`:`shape_info`. Now I must get all records that do NOT have this `uuid`...

```
GET /datasets-1.3.0/_search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
       #not relevant
      ],
      "must_not": [
        { "match" : { "uuid": "zzzz"} }
      ]
    }
  }
}

```

I added the list of `UUIDs` we got from the previous request in the `must_not` section and it works...

_ **But when I'll have thousand of uuids returned by the first query the `must_not` will then have thousand of `UUIDs` too.** _ My god...

I don't think it's any good performance wise and I would like to find a way to merge the two queries so that I d'ont have to use a fat array of strings inside the second query !

Any help is appreciated,  
Thx !

---

<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:** [April 5, 2021, 11:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-improving-this-query-before-it-explodes/266544/2 "2021-04-05T11:39:00Z")

</div>

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