# How can i filter out documents with missing field value
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-can-i-filter-out-documents-with-missing-field-value/4519
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [June 1, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-can-i-filter-out-documents-with-missing-field-value/4519 "2011-06-01T15:00:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Weiwei\_Wang](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Weiwei_Wang)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-can-i-filter-out-documents-with-missing-field-value/4519/1 "2011-06-01T15:00:19Z")
i have lots of document to index, and some of them has no value for
field "author", when search i want to be able to filter out those
documents without value for field "author"
how can i achieve it?
i tryied querystring AND author:\*, but it runs very slow
---
### Author:  [@Stephane\_Raux](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Stephane_Raux)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-can-i-filter-out-documents-with-missing-field-value/4519/2 "2011-06-01T15:03:26Z")
Did you try the "exists" filter ?
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Conversely, there is also a "missing" filter.
2011/6/1 Weiwei Wang [ww.wang.cs@gmail.com](mailto:ww.wang.cs@gmail.com):
> i have lots of document to index, and some of them has no value for
> field "author", when search i want to be able to filter out those
> documents without value for field "author"
>
> how can i achieve it?
>
> i tryied querystring AND author:\*, but it runs very slow
---
### Author:  [@Weiwei\_Wang](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Weiwei_Wang)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2011, 7:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-can-i-filter-out-documents-with-missing-field-value/4519/3 "2011-06-02T07:35:09Z")
thanks, i found _exist_ is supported by query\_string
On Jun 1, 11:03 pm, Stéphane Raux [stephane.r...@gmail.com](mailto:stephane.r...@gmail.com) wrote:
> Did you try the "exists" filter ?[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/query-dsl/exists-filter)....
>
> Conversely, there is also a "missing" filter.
>
> 2011/6/1 Weiwei Wang [ww.wang...@gmail.com](mailto:ww.wang...@gmail.com):
>
> > i have lots of document to index, and some of them has no value for
> > field "author", when search i want to be able to filter out those
> > documents without value for field "author"
>
> > how can i achieve it?
>
> > i tryied querystring AND author:\*, but it runs very slow
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 4:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-can-i-filter-out-documents-with-missing-field-value/4519/4 "2017-07-06T04:04:55Z")