# New index\_options vs term\_vector?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-index-options-vs-term-vector/9470
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [October 25, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-index-options-vs-term-vector/9470 "2012-10-25T07:10:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tanguy1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tanguy1)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-index-options-vs-term-vector/9470/1 "2012-10-25T07:10:09Z")
Hi,
Can someone be kind enough to explain the difference between term\_vector
and the new index\_options (0.20) parameter? Not sure to understand what
docs, freqs and positions means.
Thanks,
-- Tanguy
Twitter: @tlrx
> **[tlrx (Tanguy Leroux)](https://github.com/tlrx)**
>
> tlrx has 22 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.
--
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### Author:  [@simonw\_2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/simonw_2)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2012, 8:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-index-options-vs-term-vector/9470/2 "2012-10-25T08:03:55Z")
Hey Tanguy,
first of all index\_options & term\_vectors are two totally different things.
index\_options are "options" for the index you are searching on, a
datastructure that holds "terms" to document lists (posting lists).
TermVectors are a datastructure that gives you the "terms" for a given
document and in addition their position in the document as well as their
start and end character offsets. Now the index (each field has such an
index) holds a sorted list of terms and each term points to a posting list.
these posting lists are a list of documents that contain the term. On the
posting list you can also store information like frequencies (how often did
term Y occur in document X -\> useful for scoring) as well as "positions"
(at which position did term Y occur in document X -\> this is required fo
phrase & span queries).
if you have for instance a field that you only use for filtering you don't
need freqs and postions so documents only will do the job. In an index the
position information is the biggest piece of data usually aside stored
fields. If you don't do phrase queries or spans you don't need them at all
so safe the disk space and improve perf by only use docs and freqs. In
previous version it wasn't possible to have only freqs but no positions
(index\_options supersede omit\_term\_frequencies\_and\_positions) so this is an
improvement overall since the most common usecase might only need freqs but
no positions.
hope this makes more sense to you now.
simon
On Thursday, October 25, 2012 9:10:09 AM UTC+2, Tanguy wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Can someone be kind enough to explain the difference between term\_vector
> and the new index\_options (0.20) parameter? Not sure to understand what
> docs, freqs and positions means.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -- Tanguy
> Twitter: @tlrx
> [tlrx (Tanguy Leroux) · GitHub](https://github.com/tlrx)
--
---
### Author:  [@Tanguy1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tanguy1)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2012, 9:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-index-options-vs-term-vector/9470/3 "2012-10-25T09:38:04Z")
Thanks Simon, it's clear for me now :o)
-- Tanguy
Le jeudi 25 octobre 2012 10:03:55 UTC+2, simonw a écrit :
> Hey Tanguy,
>
> first of all index\_options & term\_vectors are two totally different
> things. index\_options are "options" for the index you are searching on, a
> datastructure that holds "terms" to document lists (posting lists).
> TermVectors are a datastructure that gives you the "terms" for a given
> document and in addition their position in the document as well as their
> start and end character offsets. Now the index (each field has such an
> index) holds a sorted list of terms and each term points to a posting list.
> these posting lists are a list of documents that contain the term. On the
> posting list you can also store information like frequencies (how often did
> term Y occur in document X -\> useful for scoring) as well as "positions"
> (at which position did term Y occur in document X -\> this is required fo
> phrase & span queries).
>
> if you have for instance a field that you only use for filtering you don't
> need freqs and postions so documents only will do the job. In an index the
> position information is the biggest piece of data usually aside stored
> fields. If you don't do phrase queries or spans you don't need them at all
> so safe the disk space and improve perf by only use docs and freqs. In
> previous version it wasn't possible to have only freqs but no positions
> (index\_options supersede omit\_term\_frequencies\_and\_positions) so this is an
> improvement overall since the most common usecase might only need freqs but
> no positions.
>
> hope this makes more sense to you now.
>
> simon
>
> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 9:10:09 AM UTC+2, Tanguy wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Can someone be kind enough to explain the difference between term\_vector
> > and the new index\_options (0.20) parameter? Not sure to understand what
> > docs, freqs and positions means.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > -- Tanguy
> > Twitter: @tlrx
> > [tlrx (Tanguy Leroux) · GitHub](https://github.com/tlrx)
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-index-options-vs-term-vector/9470/4 "2017-07-06T03:07:17Z")