# Is there a way to copy the term to a field?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-copy-the-term-to-a-field/42057>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 17, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-copy-the-term-to-a-field/42057 "2016-02-17T17:41:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Guill](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/guill/32/4779_2.png) [@Guill](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Guill)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-copy-the-term-to-a-field/42057/1 "2016-02-17T17:41:01Z")

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if copy\_to "It is the field value which is copied, not the terms (which result from the analysis process)." is there a way to copy the term so that it is searchable on "\_all"

Thank you

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**Author:** ![nik9000](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nik9000/32/44947_2.png) [@nik9000](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nik9000)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-copy-the-term-to-a-field/42057/2 "2016-02-17T17:57:52Z")

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No. You can only copy the values and set up the analyzers to generate the same terms. Elasticsearch doesn't support copying the terms because:

- Analysis is done at a later time so this wouldn't be easy the way lucene is structured
- It wouldn't work super well anyway because searching `_all` typically relies on `match` which relies on the analyzer spitting out the right term anyway.

Maybe some other reasons I can't think of off the top of my head.

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**Author:** ![Guill](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/guill/32/4779_2.png) [@Guill](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Guill)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 11:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-copy-the-term-to-a-field/42057/3 "2016-02-17T23:10:41Z")

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Thanks for the reply,  
therefore does this means that I cannot have a '\_all' search that searcher for a asciifolded field?

Thanks,

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-copy-the-term-to-a-field/42057/4 "2017-07-05T23:15:33Z")

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