# How to sort buckets across nested bucket fields

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-sort-buckets-across-nested-bucket-fields/204508>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [October 21, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-sort-buckets-across-nested-bucket-fields/204508 "2019-10-21T14:58:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MarcelMan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/marcelman/32/45072_2.png) [@MarcelMan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/MarcelMan)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-sort-buckets-across-nested-bucket-fields/204508/1 "2019-10-21T14:58:22Z")

</div>

I'm unable to figure out how to write a query which will sort buckets based on their nested fields.

Each document in my index has this schema:

```auto
{
  "provider_message_text": "this is about a song",
  "sentiment_score": 0.4,
  "sentiment_magnitude": 0.35
}

```

I first group documents into buckets based on what they are about, then based on the sentiment score and magnitude, I group messages into three buckets: negative, positive and neutral. This is done with this query:

```auto
{
  "aggs": {
    "messages": {
      "filters": {
        "filters": {
          "song": {
            "bool": {
              "should": [
                {"match_phrase": {"provider_message_text": {"query": "song"}}}
              ]
            }
          },
          "help": {
            "bool": {
              "should": [
                {"match_phrase": {"provider_message_text": {"query": "help"}}}
              ]
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "aggs": {
        "sentiment": {
          "filters": {
            "other_bucket_key": "neutral",
            "filters": {
              "positive": {
                "bool": {
                  "must": [
                    {"range": {"sentiment_score": {"gte": 0.2}}},
                    {"range": {"sentiment_magnitude": {"gt": 0.3}}}
                  ]
                }
              },
              "negative": {
                "bool": {
                  "must": [
                    {"range": {"sentiment_score": {"lte": -0.2}}},
                    {"range": {"sentiment_magnitude": {"gt": 0.3}}}
                  ]
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

```

Which produces the following results:

```auto
{
  "messages": {
    "buckets": {
      "help": {
        "doc_count": 5,
        "sentiment": {
          "buckets": {
            "negative": {"doc_count": 2},
            "positive": {"doc_count": 0},
            "neutral": {"doc_count": 3}
          }
        }
      },
      "song": {
        "doc_count": 15,
        "sentiment": {
          "buckets": {
            "negative": {"doc_count": 9},
            "positive": {"doc_count": 2},
            "neutral": {"doc_count": 4}
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

```

I want to be able to sort the top level buckets (`help` and `song` in this case) based on their nested `sentiment.buckets.negative.doc_count` properties, so that I can see the bucket which has the highest number of negative documents first/last.

Can this be done in ES?

---

<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 18, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-sort-buckets-across-nested-bucket-fields/204508/2 "2019-11-18T14:58:23Z")

</div>

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