# How to highlight the matching subtext in elasticsearch

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-highlight-the-matching-subtext-in-elasticsearch/344754>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [October 10, 2023, 4:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-highlight-the-matching-subtext-in-elasticsearch/344754 "2023-10-10T16:41:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Karthikeyan\_Amaresan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/karthikeyan_amaresan/32/94017_2.png) [@Karthikeyan\_Amaresan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Karthikeyan_Amaresan)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2023, 4:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-highlight-the-matching-subtext-in-elasticsearch/344754/1 "2023-10-10T16:41:52Z")

</div>

I am getting expected highlighting of substring matching user search keyword in companyName and country fields. However in emailId field instead of highlighting the substring the entire field is getting highlighted.

**Query**

```auto
POST customers-index/_search
{
  "size": 20,
  "query": {
    "must": [
      {
        "multi_match": {
          "query": "state",
          "fields": [
            "emailId.autocomplete",
            "companyName.autocomplete",
            "country.autocomplete"
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "highlight": {
    "fields": {
      "emailId.autocomplete": {},
      "companyName.autocomplete": {},
      "country.autocomplete": {}
    }
  },
  "_source": [
    "emailId",
    "companyName",
    "country"
  ]
}

```

**Response**

```auto
[
 {
        "_index" : "customers-index",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id" : "c44aefde-22b1-471d-9159-a092e5c604f6",
        "_score" : 14.853605,
        "_source" : {
          "country" : "Ethiopia",
          "companyName" : "La Galtoara, Inc.",
          "emailId" : [
            "galtoara@state.gov"
          ]
        },
        "highlight" : {
          "emailId.autocomplete" : [
            "<em>galtoara@state.gov</em>"
          ]
        }
      },
      {
        "_index" : "customers-index",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id" : "f76ecf0a-3e7d-41f9-a96f-83c66698f2d1",
        "_score" : 3.6045084,
        "_source" : {
          "country" : "Philippines",
          "companyName" : "Belgone State Medical, Inc.",
          "emailId" : [
            "dopasdfd@apple.com"
          ]
        },
        "highlight" : {
          "companyName.autocomplete" : [
            "Belgone <em>State</em> Medical, Inc."
          ]
        }
      },
      {
        "_index" : "customers-index",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id" : "b41b1c0c-e84d-4424-a862-38b10d380d23",
        "_score" : 2.1431046,
        "_source" : {
          "country" : "United States",
          "companyName" : "DFDFDF Brands Limited",
          "emailId" : [
            "adfadfad@godaddy.com"
          ]
        },
        "highlight" : {
          "country.autocomplete" : [
            "United <em>State</em>s"
          ]
        }
      }
]

```

**Mapping**

```auto
{
  "emailId": {
    "type": "text",
    "fields": {
      "autocomplete": {
        "type": "text",
        "analyzer": "autocomplete_email_analyzer",
        "search_analyzer": "search_analyzer"
      },
      "keyword": {
        "type": "keyword",
        "ignore_above": 256,
        "normalizer": "lowercase_normalizer"
      }
    },
    "analyzer": "index_analyzer",
    "search_analyzer": "search_analyzer"
  }
}

```

**Setting**

```auto
{
  "analysis": {
    "filter": {
      "email_filter": {
        "type": "pattern_capture",
        "preserve_original": "true",
        "patterns": [
          "/regex-pattern/"
        ]
      },
      "starts_with_filter": {
        "type": "edge_ngram",
        "min_gram": "1",
        "max_gram": "100"
      }
    },
    "analyzer": {
      "search_analyzer": {
        "filter": [
          "lowercase"
        ],
        "tokenizer": "keyword"
      },
      "index_analyzer": {
        "filter": [
          "lowercase"
        ],
        "tokenizer": "index_analyzer"
      },
      "autocomplete_email_analyzer": {
        "filter": [
          "email_filter",
          "unique",
          "starts_with_filter",
          "lowercase"
        ],
        "tokenizer": "autocomplete_email_tokenizer"
      }
    },
    "tokenizer": {
      "autocomplete_email_tokenizer": {
        "type": "uax_url_email"
      }
    }
  }
}

```

Note: I have added the mappings and settings relevant to emailId field alone as it is the field of concern.

As we can notice from the response, companyName and country fields are highlighted on the substring matching search query level however, emailId field is highlighted entirely.

How to highlight only the substring in the emailId field also. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Karthikeyan\_Amaresan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/karthikeyan_amaresan/32/94017_2.png) [@Karthikeyan\_Amaresan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Karthikeyan_Amaresan)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 1:08am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-highlight-the-matching-subtext-in-elasticsearch/344754/2 "2023-10-11T01:08:52Z")

</div>

Updated Setting

```auto
{
  "analysis": {
    "filter": {
      "email_filter": {
        "type": "pattern_capture",
        "preserve_original": "true",
        "patterns": [
          """(?=([@|\.|\!|\#|\$|%|&|'|\*|\+|\-|\/|\=|\?|\^|\_|\`|\{|\||\}|\~](.+)))"""
        ]
      },
      "starts_with_filter": {
        "type": "edge_ngram",
        "min_gram": "1",
        "max_gram": "100"
      }
    },
    "analyzer": {
      "search_analyzer": {
        "filter": [
          "lowercase"
        ],
        "tokenizer": "keyword"
      },
      "index_analyzer": {
        "filter": [
          "lowercase"
        ],
        "tokenizer": "index_analyzer"
      },
      "autocomplete_email_analyzer": {
        "filter": [
          "email_filter",
          "unique",
          "starts_with_filter",
          "lowercase"
        ],
        "tokenizer": "autocomplete_email_tokenizer"
      }
    },
    "normalizer": {
      "lowercase_normalizer": {
        "filter": [
          "lowercase"
        ],
        "type": "custom",
        "char_filter": []
      }
    },
    "tokenizer": {
      "autocomplete_email_tokenizer": {
        "type": "uax_url_email"
      },
      "index_analyzer": {
        "token_chars": [
          "letter",
          "digit",
          "whitespace",
          "punctuation",
          "symbol"
        ],
        "min_gram": "2",
        "type": "ngram",
        "max_gram": "30"
      }
    }
  }
}
 

```

---

<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:** [November 8, 2023, 1:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-highlight-the-matching-subtext-in-elasticsearch/344754/3 "2023-11-08T01:09:04Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.