# Highlight and complex search

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlight-and-complex-search/257633>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [December 4, 2020, 9:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlight-and-complex-search/257633 "2020-12-04T09:10:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FABIAN\_HUTIN](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/fabian_hutin/32/80188_2.png) [@FABIAN\_HUTIN](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/FABIAN_HUTIN)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 9:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlight-and-complex-search/257633/1 "2020-12-04T09:10:35Z")

</div>

Hey guys,  
Newbie Elastic user here.

I'd like to share with you an issue I have while using the highlight feature in a complex search operation.  
What I want to achieve is to get the list of fields that match my search and led to the document being returned.

Here is my search query that is composed of 3 multi match query on the same fields but with different types and analyszer :

```auto
    GET /datasets/_search
    {
      "explain": true,
      "highlight": {
        "fields": {
          "name": {},
          "description": {},
          "scope": {},
          "businessTerms": {}
        },
        "require_field_match": false
      },
      "query": {
        "bool": {
          "must": [
            {
              "bool": {
                "should": [
                  {
                    "multi_match": {
                      "type": "cross_fields",
                      "query": "Customer something Receipt",
                      "fields": [
                        "name^1",
                        "scope^1",
                        "description^0.05",
                        "businessTerms^2"
                      ],
                      "analyzer": "whitespace_tokenizer",
                      "_name": "_datasets"
                    }
                  },
                  {
                    "multi_match": {
                      "query": "Customer something Receipt",
                      "type": "phrase",
                      "slop": 1,
                      "fields": [
                        "name^1",
                        "scope^1",
                        "description^0.05",
                        "businessTerms^2"
                      ],
                      "analyzer": "whitespace_tokenizer",
                      "_name": "_phrase_datasets"
                    }
                  },
                  {
                    "multi_match": {
                      "query": "Customer something Receipt",
                      "type": "phrase",
                      "slop": 3,
                      "fields": [
                        "name^1",
                        "scope^1",
                        "description^0.05",
                        "businessTerms^2"
                      ],
                      "analyzer": "lowercase_tokenizer_bu_mapping",
                      "_name": "_exact_phrase_bu_mapping_datasets"
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "must_not": [
            {
              "term": {
                "isPrivate": true
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }

```

Below is a sample of the response :

```auto
    {
        "_shard": "[datasets][0]",
        "_node": "fv-Hfz4kTmuhDxfRsRVM1g",
        "_index": "datasets",
        "_type": "_doc",
        "_id": "SomeId",
        "_score": 15.152907,
        "_source": {
            "name": "Some name",
            "code": "SomeId",
            "teamId": "teamId",
            "description": "Some Description",
            "businessTerms": [
                "Customer receipt line",
                "Customer Receipt",
                "Customer Discount",
                "Payment line",
                "Profit Transaction"
            ],
            "isPrivate": false
        },
        "matched_queries": [
            "_datasets"
        ]
    }

```

As you can see from the output, there's no highlight but we can see that the match\_query was the \_dataset one.

What bugs me is that if I remove other queries from my search :

```auto
    GET /datasets/_search
    {
      "explain": true,
      "highlight": {
        "fields": {
          "name": {},
          "description": {},
          "scope": {},
          "businessTerms": {}
        },
        "require_field_match": false
      },
      "query": {
        "bool": {
          "must": [
            {
              "bool": {
                "should": [
                  {
                    "multi_match": {
                      "type": "cross_fields",
                      "query": "Customer something Receipt",
                      "fields": [
                        "name^1",
                        "scope^1",
                        "description^0.05",
                        "businessTerms^2"
                      ],
                      "analyzer": "whitespace_tokenizer",
                      "_name": "_datasets"
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "must_not": [
            {
              "term": {
                "isPrivate": true
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }

```

The output has an highlight that corresponds to what I expect :

```auto
    {
        "_shard": "[datasets][0]",
        "_node": "fv-Hfz4kTmuhDxfRsRVM1g",
        "_index": "datasets",
        "_type": "_doc",
        "_id": "SomeId",
        "_score": 15.152907,
        "_source": {
            "name": "Some name",
            "code": "SomeId",
            "teamId": "teamId",
            "description": "Some description",
            "businessTerms": [
                "Sales",
                "Customer receipt line",
                "Customer Receipt",
                "Customer Discount",
                "Payment line",
                "Profit Transaction"
            ],
            "isPrivate": false
        },
        "highlight": {
            "businessTerms": [
                "<em>Customer</em> <em>receipt</em> line",
                "<em>Customer</em> <em>Receipt</em>",
                "<em>Customer</em> Discount"
            ]
        },
        "matched_queries": [
            "_datasets"
        ]
    }

```

Do you guys have any idea why it behaves like that ?  
And how I can achieve what I'm looking to do ?

Thanks,

Fabian.

---

<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:** [January 1, 2021, 9:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlight-and-complex-search/257633/2 "2021-01-01T09:10:49Z")

</div>

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