# Remove buckets from being returned in Aggregation
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [October 19, 2021, 2:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107 "2021-10-19T14:37:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@EricPSU](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/EricPSU)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2021, 2:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107/1 "2021-10-19T14:37:27Z")
Is there a way to prevent the `buckets` array from being returned as a part of the aggregation result? I am using a `sum_bucket` to total all of the buckets and I don't need all of the buckets to be returned. I'm just using `key` and `displayCount`. I worry that with my dataset, there could be hundreds of buckets returned for hundreds of keys.
Meaning, if my default result is below:
```auto
{
"aggregations" : {
"Sports" : {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
"sum_other_doc_count" : 0,
"buckets" : [
{
"key" : "Football",
"doc_count" : 5,
"States" : {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
"sum_other_doc_count" : 0,
"buckets" : [
{
"key" : "Maryland",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
},
{
"key" : "New York",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
},
{
"key" : "Ohio",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
},
{
"key" : "Pennsylvania",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
},
{
"key" : "Virginia",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
}
]
},
"displayCount" : {
"value" : 5.0
}
},
{
"key" : "Baseball",
"doc_count" : 3,
"States" : {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
"sum_other_doc_count" : 0,
"buckets" : [
{
"key" : "Maryland",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
},
{
"key" : "Ohio",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
},
{
"key" : "Pennsylvania",
"doc_count" : 1,
"countStates" : {
"value" : 1
}
}
]
},
"displayCount" : {
"value" : 3.0
}
}
}
}
```
Can I remove the `buckets` array within the fields to only return the following:
```auto
{
"aggregations" : {
"Sports" : {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
"sum_other_doc_count" : 0,
"buckets" : [
{
"key" : "Football",
"doc_count" : 5,
"States" : {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
"sum_other_doc_count" : 0
}
"displayCount" : {
"value" : 5.0
}
},
{
"key" : "Baseball",
"doc_count" : 3,
"States" : {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 0,
"sum_other_doc_count" : 0,
},
"displayCount" : {
"value" : 3.0
}
}
}
}
```
---
### Author:  [@EricPSU](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/EricPSU)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107/2 "2021-10-19T14:52:25Z")
I'll add that I am aware I could use [filter\_paths](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/common-options.html#common-options-response-filtering) list to get what I want, but that feels like overkill for removing just one array from the entire result set. Also I am using the Java API, which filter\_paths is not available.
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2021, 3:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107/3 "2021-10-19T15:10:24Z")
Hi Eric,
I'm not sure what produces the displayCount in your response?
I suspect you may be interested in the `cardinality` aggregation
---
### Author:  [@EricPSU](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/EricPSU)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2021, 3:35pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107/4 "2021-10-19T15:35:15Z")
I'm not familiar enough with `cardinality` to know if it work with my use case, but I am more than happen to try if it does. Essentially I am creating a faceted search and I want my categories to display a count of potential results if that facet is selected. I can accomplish this with an `aggs` query in my `aggregation` like shown below.
Can `cardinality` do something similar? I am working with around 2 million documents so I worry if the solution is to run a script that performance would suffer.
```auto
{
"query": {
"match_all": {}
},
"post_filter": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{
"terms": {
"sport.name.keyword": [
"Football"
]
}
}
]
}
},
"aggregations": {
"States": {
"terms": {
"field": "state.name.keyword"
},
"aggs": {
"Sports": {
"terms": {
"field": "sport.name.keyword",
"include": [
"Football"
],
"size": 10000
},
"aggs": {
"countSports": {
"value_count": {
"field": "_id"
}
}
}
},
"displayCount": {
"sum_bucket": {
"buckets_path": "Sports>countSports"
}
}
}
}
}
}
```
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107/5 "2021-10-19T15:44:58Z")
When you swap a terms agg for a cardinality agg you’re effectively asking for a count of how many terms buckets would match without seeing the string values of any of them.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2021, 3:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-buckets-from-being-returned-in-aggregation/287107/6 "2021-11-16T15:45:51Z")
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