# Question on breaking change (boost) in 1.0.0.RC1 release **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [January 16, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280 "2014-01-16T19:47:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Amit\_Soni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Amit\_Soni](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Amit_Soni)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280/1 "2014-01-16T19:47:12Z")
Hi all - I have been going through the list of breaking changes in 1.0.0.RC1 and have a question regarding boosting of documents. I see that "\*Support for document boosting via the \_boost field has been removed from Lucene and is deprecated in Elasticsearch as of v1.0.0.RC1. \*" [http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/master/mapping-boost-field.html#function-score-instead-of-boost](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/master/mapping-boost-field.html#function-score-instead-of-boost) Since I didnt really understand if there is a way one can still boost documents during indexing, I wanted to check with this group. So if I correctly understand there would be no mechanism to specify boost value of the documents during indexing time. Is that right? -Amit. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQJbeK0y%3DwzpKBQ7CMP2t\_Et8j%3D4QXY6ggLisYLcKADZbQ%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQJbeK0y%3DwzpKBQ7CMP2t_Et8j%3D4QXY6ggLisYLcKADZbQ%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![Ivan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/df788c/32.png) [@Ivan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Ivan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280/2 "2014-01-16T19:54:31Z")
Judging by the commits, the functionality was only deprecated, not removed. > > > The document boost is a nice feature but since it was removed from lucene 4.0, t…he way it works in elasticsearch is by adding fields boosts to each field, multiplying it with the original field boost. Here is the interesting commit: https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/commit/c60f20413b299e4d9ea0a5fa3e24381e90d914b8#diff-7117c679a1ca0d5002c0c9b9ef8bad16 . That is not exactly how the document boost should work, it has downsides and the same result can be obtained using function\_score. > > For the above reasons we are going to deprecate the document boost. I believe there are many use cases where it makes sense to boost a document at index time. The process only occurs once instead of every time during queries. That said, as the github issue says, document boosts are very confusing. What it basically does behind the scenes is changing the field norm for every field in the document. If you disable norms on a field, then that document cannot boost on that field. The scoring becomes erratic and hard to explain. You cannot disable length normalization on fields since that would require the field norms, which are needed by the document boosts. Overall it believe it is better to switch to custom scoring at query time. Cheers, Ivan On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Amit Soni [amitsoni29@gmail.com](mailto:amitsoni29@gmail.com) wrote: > Hi all - I have been going through the list of breaking changes in > 1.0.0.RC1 and have a question regarding boosting of documents. I see that "\*Support > for document boosting via the \_boost field has been removed from Lucene and > is deprecated in Elasticsearch as of v1.0.0.RC1. \*" > > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/master/mapping-boost-field.html#function-score-instead-of-boost) > > Since I didnt really understand if there is a way one can still boost > documents during indexing, I wanted to check with this group. So if I > correctly understand there would be no mechanism to specify boost value of > the documents during indexing time. Is that right? > > -Amit. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > To view this discussion on the web visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQJbeK0y%3DwzpKBQ7CMP2t\_Et8j%3D4QXY6ggLisYLcKADZbQ%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQJbeK0y%3DwzpKBQ7CMP2t_Et8j%3D4QXY6ggLisYLcKADZbQ%40mail.gmail.com) > . > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CALY%3DcQBHBCM7f%2BpZL7ZZ7d7HFzxqTr%3DO5begP%2BcK1JD7Rp3u2w%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CALY%3DcQBHBCM7f%2BpZL7ZZ7d7HFzxqTr%3DO5begP%2BcK1JD7Rp3u2w%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![jprante](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jprante/32/44941_2.png) [@jprante](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jprante)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 10:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280/3 "2014-01-16T22:57:21Z")
You can continue to set up your document boost field (e.g. a numeric field named "boost") with a document boost value, and use function score to use it as a boost factor. That is, a function score script knows how to boost correctly: [http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/query-dsl-function-score-query.html#\_boost\_factor](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/query-dsl-function-score-query.html#_boost_factor) Jörg -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoGfj-C1w2B7mhFFRNJSG1SfAVPwZDnqUR08nh1XnzjytA%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoGfj-C1w2B7mhFFRNJSG1SfAVPwZDnqUR08nh1XnzjytA%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![Amit\_Soni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Amit\_Soni](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Amit_Soni)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 8:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280/4 "2014-01-31T08:27:53Z")
Thanks so much Jörg and Ivan. Do you think I can use function score with any query? I use simple query string query and wondering how this can be used along with that? -Amit. On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 2:57 PM, [joergprante@gmail.com](mailto:joergprante@gmail.com) \< [joergprante@gmail.com](mailto:joergprante@gmail.com)\> wrote: > You can continue to set up your document boost field (e.g. a numeric field > named "boost") with a document boost value, and use function score to use > it as a boost factor. That is, a function score script knows how to boost > correctly: > > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/query-dsl-function-score-query.html#_boost_factor) > > Jörg > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > To view this discussion on the web visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoGfj-C1w2B7mhFFRNJSG1SfAVPwZDnqUR08nh1XnzjytA%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoGfj-C1w2B7mhFFRNJSG1SfAVPwZDnqUR08nh1XnzjytA%40mail.gmail.com) > . > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQK%2BB9L5HQ6TnWY-Z09pR5p-k5L0apm6yaGmW1poGNFn%3Dg%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQK%2BB9L5HQ6TnWY-Z09pR5p-k5L0apm6yaGmW1poGNFn%3Dg%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![jprante](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jprante/32/44941_2.png) [@jprante](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jprante)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 9:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280/5 "2014-01-31T09:31:13Z")
See this full example of document boosting with function score query, you can use any query you like. > Jörg -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoH9FY2xbNGK70Tg9%2B0k75TJmvwkhrcAUuWNDDNkOr%2BGqw%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoH9FY2xbNGK70Tg9%2B0k75TJmvwkhrcAUuWNDDNkOr%2BGqw%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![Amit\_Soni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Amit\_Soni](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Amit_Soni)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 2:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280/6 "2014-02-03T02:20:22Z")
Thanks much Jörg, this is super helpful. I didn't realize we could wrap a query inside function score query. -Amit. On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:31 AM, [joergprante@gmail.com](mailto:joergprante@gmail.com) \< [joergprante@gmail.com](mailto:joergprante@gmail.com)\> wrote: > See this full example of document boosting with function score query, you > can use any query you like. > > [Document boosting with function score query · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/jprante/8728976) > > Jörg > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > To view this discussion on the web visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoH9FY2xbNGK70Tg9%2B0k75TJmvwkhrcAUuWNDDNkOr%2BGqw%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAKdsXoH9FY2xbNGK70Tg9%2B0k75TJmvwkhrcAUuWNDDNkOr%2BGqw%40mail.gmail.com) > . > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQLeSNVQ\_1xb1zUJHEYs2koifrOxsRGZXaeO%3DifUZGF8zQ%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAAOGaQLeSNVQ_1xb1zUJHEYs2koifrOxsRGZXaeO%3DifUZGF8zQ%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**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, 1:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-on-breaking-change-boost-in-1-0-0-rc1-release/15280/7 "2017-07-06T01:53:21Z")