# Is there any character limit on term filter?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [July 25, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544 "2021-07-25T01:22:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dotel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dotel/32/77606_2.png) [@dotel](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dotel)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544/1 "2021-07-25T01:22:46Z")

</div>

I'm trying to check if a certain attachment is previously indexed or not to avoid reindexing that document. But the problem is, for longer text fields, the term filter isn't working. I didn't find any mention of this limitation in the documentation. For the same document,

```auto
GET myIndex/_search
{
  "_source": ["attachmentId", "attachment.title"]
  , "from": 0,
  "size": 100,
  "query": {
    "term": {
      "attachment.title.keyword":"Developers_Handbook"
    }
  }
}

```

works but

```auto
GET myIndex/_search
{
  "_source": ["attachmentId", "attachment.title"]
  , "from": 0,
  "size": 100,
  "query": {
    "term": {
      "attachmentId.keyword":"ANGjdJ8AZZwMqSNtE2blw2GPnXsjn3Zuo8iytsY_G3Lz24iZM6eASgf2iPaBxyfcY7LO_GHjZc8oo20EwAl-9kH_-fhA37ciPoQgzoGob4JdoA3Drhu_OJ9Kz997duCVoz6fj_U5vDs3XMm76wQXXx5X6RguxCkojGwsBG2GZYPWsrbSHT81lxHd1_GSk6J9vh4PLazlhSaU8pZtjt_NyQo7gMuT0FHUmi9MZ63ivxQ6IJk1SL48GPnavBGKSi16FHlb4Kh_9n_Zt4fY6rXsJlxxNHH7QAPpuIT751X37dIEtSJHTDXjNQICd9Y0KUuiLop28FX9P8lZn-n_ZRqojsTnsdL9p4AJQy_EYA_a24yUROmwfRLmPCUVlYsE1_wS60DHi3wRHY8JYjNe8fkZ"
    }
  }
}

```

this does not. Is this expected behaviour? Also, is there a better way to do this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2021, 1:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544/2 "2021-07-25T01:56:45Z")

</div>

What is the mapping?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dotel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dotel/32/77606_2.png) [@dotel](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dotel)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2021, 2:41am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544/3 "2021-07-25T02:41:07Z")

</div>

```auto
{
  "myIndex" : {
    "mappings" : {
      "properties" : {
        "attachment" : {
          "properties" : {
            "author" : {
              "type" : "text",
              "fields" : {
                "keyword" : {
                  "type" : "keyword",
                  "ignore_above" : 256
                }
              }
            },
            "content" : {
              "type" : "text",
              "fields" : {
                "keyword" : {
                  "type" : "keyword",
                  "ignore_above" : 256
                }
              }
            },
            "content_length" : {
              "type" : "long"
            },
            "content_type" : {
              "type" : "text",
              "fields" : {
                "keyword" : {
                  "type" : "keyword",
                  "ignore_above" : 256
                }
              }
            },
            "date" : {
              "type" : "date"
            },
            "language" : {
              "type" : "text",
              "fields" : {
                "keyword" : {
                  "type" : "keyword",
                  "ignore_above" : 256
                }
              }
            },
            "title" : {
              "type" : "text",
              "fields" : {
                "keyword" : {
                  "type" : "keyword",
                  "ignore_above" : 256
                }
              }
            }
          }
        },
        "attachmentId" : {
          "type" : "text",
          "fields" : {
            "keyword" : {
              "type" : "keyword",
              "ignore_above" : 256
            }
          }
        },
        "data" : {
          "type" : "text",
          "fields" : {
            "keyword" : {
              "type" : "keyword",
              "ignore_above" : 256
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

```

Is the comparision failing because ignore\_above is set to 256?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2021, 5:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544/4 "2021-07-25T05:38:26Z")

</div>

Yes.

But I'd probably try something else. I'd compute a signature for your file which I'd store instead of searching for a term which can be very very very big. I don't think that's a good idea to index the base64 content.  
I don't think it's a good idea to store it in elasticsearch.

In FSCrawler project, I'm computing such a signature for every file I'm sending to elasticsearch. And I'm only comparing signatures.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dotel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dotel/32/77606_2.png) [@dotel](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dotel)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2021, 5:47am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544/5 "2021-07-25T05:47:29Z")

</div>

Thanks a lot. That base64 value is actually always going to be 404 characters long. But it's probably a bad idea nevertheless. I'll be mindful of it when implementing it. For now, I was just doing a POC.

---

<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:** [August 22, 2021, 5:48am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-any-character-limit-on-term-filter/279544/6 "2021-08-22T05:48:06Z")

</div>

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