# Reading \_source field **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [July 11, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reading--source-field/12761 "2013-07-11T17:40:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Arni\_Sumarlidason](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/arni_sumarlidason/32/2229_2.png) [@Arni\_Sumarlidason](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Arni_Sumarlidason)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reading--source-field/12761/1 "2013-07-11T17:40:30Z")
Good afternoon, I did some searching on the boards here, and I did find someone had touched on this subject before[1], but maybe i am still missing something because my results were not good. I am using apache's lucene api to read the documents generated by elastic search, I am able to iterate documents and extract the \_source field... i'm trying to convert this back to a string. According to documentation[2] the field can be compressed with LZF, I checked our config and it seems we left this default -\> disabled. I am getting only junk strings. ☹ Any help would be appreciated. BytesRef bRef = doc.getBinaryValue("\_source"); byte[] decodedBytes = decoder.decode(bRef.bytes); String tmp = new String(decodedBytes, ("UTF-8"); [1] [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/elasticsearch/\_source$20decode/elasticsearch/pWfgxKF0GWc/GgcF1\_OUEXEJ](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/elasticsearch/_source%2420decode/elasticsearch/pWfgxKF0GWc/GgcF1_OUEXEJ) [2] [http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/mapping/source-field/](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/mapping/source-field/) -- 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). 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:** [July 11, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reading--source-field/12761/2 "2013-07-11T17:59:52Z")
Never looked into it, but try looking at some of the logic used in SourceFieldMapper and its relevant tests: [https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/blob/master/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/internal/SourceFieldMapper.java](https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/blob/master/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/internal/SourceFieldMapper.java) [https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/tree/master/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/test/unit/index/mapper/source](https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/tree/master/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/test/unit/index/mapper/source) The unit tests are often useful to figure out how the code is constructed. A static helper class called CompressorFactory is used. Maybe that would have some clue. -- Ivan On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Arni Sumarlidason [sumarlidason@gmail.com](mailto:sumarlidason@gmail.com)wrote: > Good afternoon, > > I did some searching on the boards here, and I did find someone had > touched on this subject before[1], but maybe i am still missing something > because my results were not good. > > I am using apache's lucene api to read the documents generated by elastic > search, I am able to iterate documents and extract the \_source field... i'm > trying to convert this back to a string. According to documentation[2] the > field can be compressed with LZF, I checked our config and it seems we left > this default -\> disabled. > > I am getting only junk strings. ☹ Any help would be appreciated. > > BytesRef bRef = doc.getBinaryValue("\_source"); > byte decodedBytes = decoder.decode(bRef.bytes); > String tmp = new String(decodedBytes, ("UTF-8"); > [1] > [Redirecting to Google Groups](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/elasticsearch/_source$20decode/elasticsearch/pWfgxKF0GWc/GgcF1_OUEXEJ) > [2] [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/mapping/source-field/) > > -- > 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). > 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). 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, 2:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reading--source-field/12761/3 "2017-07-06T02:26:56Z")