# Interactive "cleaning" of search input before actual search

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/interactive-cleaning-of-search-input-before-actual-search/22150>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 13, 2015, 10:16am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/interactive-cleaning-of-search-input-before-actual-search/22150 "2015-02-13T10:16:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jean\_Helou](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jean_helou/32/917_2.png) [@Jean\_Helou](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jean_Helou)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 10:16am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/interactive-cleaning-of-search-input-before-actual-search/22150/1 "2015-02-13T10:16:12Z")

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Hi all,

first off I apologize if this question has already been asked or if it  
doesn't belong here, I spent the last 2 days searching on google, reading  
the elasticsearch documentation and generally experimenting with various  
queries/filters/analyzers to no avail. Any pointer or even appropriate  
search terms would be welcome answers.

I am trying to build a "smart" search for a machine parts database which is  
organized along 4 axis : the item, the quality specifications, the machine  
it can be used on, the vendor it can be found at.

A slightly simplified "part" looks like

{  
"name":"conveyor belt",  
"ref": "A3FD45GH56S-24FRG4",  
"id": 1,  
"quality":{ "range":"A", "value": 19},  
"properties":{ "length":180,"width": 69,"ratio": 14},  
"machine":{"maker":"Kity","product": "Bestcombi 2000","variation": "Bestcombi 2000 +"},  
"vendor":{"name": "ADS","city":"york"}  
},

A larger sample is available in gist  
[https://gist.github.com/jeantil/612fb395e2bcbcf07e26](https://gist.github.com/jeantil/612fb395e2bcbcf07e26)

A classic user input will almost never be good enough to find a proper  
match in the database since we need information on all the axis to be able  
to reduce the number of results to a manageable level.

Therefore we don't want actual parts results for a user input, instead we  
want to identify in the user's query the terms which are most probably  
specific enough of restrict one of the axis.

For instance if the user searches for (more sample inputs including typos  
and expected results are available in the gist  
[https://gist.github.com/jeantil/612fb395e2bcbcf07e26](https://gist.github.com/jeantil/612fb395e2bcbcf07e26) )  
"conveyor belt for bestcomby 2000 in york"

I would like to know that it matches the following information in the parts  
database so I can ask him for more information in the correct axis to  
further restrict the :

"machine":{"product":"Bestcombi","variation":"Bestcombi 2000"}  
"vendor":{ "city":"york" }

In case the product/variation combination is restrictive enough that it can  
only match one maker (in the above example) it would be nice te know it  
too, so a nice to have result with the provided example would be :

"machine":{"maker":"Kity","product":"Bestcombi","variation":"Bestcombi 2000"}  
"vendor":{ "name":"ADS","city":"york" }

I have tried term suggestor, phrase suggestor, multimatch query with  
aggregations but all of these fall short in one way or another :

- suggestors don't ignore terms which don't belong to the "axis"
- multimatch query will not always select the "correct" result (it returns  
Bestcombi 2000+ when searching Bestcombi) and the associated aggregations  
will rank Bestcombi 2000+ above Bestcombi since in the complete database I  
have much more parts for the bestcombi200+ than for the bestcombi.

Any pointer on how to tackle this problem would be very very welcome.

Thanks  
Jean

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<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:** [July 6, 2017, 12:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/interactive-cleaning-of-search-input-before-actual-search/22150/2 "2017-07-06T00:32:59Z")

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Closed on July 6, 2017, 12:32am UTC