# Search as you type for documents with digits, unicode and special characters
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-as-you-type-for-documents-with-digits-unicode-and-special-characters/326005
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [February 20, 2023, 7:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-as-you-type-for-documents-with-digits-unicode-and-special-characters/326005 "2023-02-20T19:51:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@zdebyman](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/zdebyman)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2023, 7:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-as-you-type-for-documents-with-digits-unicode-and-special-characters/326005/1 "2023-02-20T19:51:45Z")
Hi! Im very new to the ES and while learning and playing around with it, I got stuck with a problem that i'm not sure how to solve.
**REQUIREMENT**
I'm trying to build search-as-you-type autocomplete. I have a table with one column “name”.
Here is a list of example documents I have:
1. O/Purist Tsipouro
2. Southside
3. South Side
4. Bénédictine
5. Piña Colada
6. Bee's Knees
7. Beer
8. 49th Street
9. 49 Warriors
10. 3 Dolla
Few requirements on how I want it to work.
Input - Expected output examples
- [“O/P”, “o / pu”, “o/p”] -\> [“O/Purist Tsipouro”, …]
- [“Southside”] -\> [“Southside”, “South side”, …]
- [“South side”] -\> [“South side”, “Southside”, …]
- ["benedict", "ben”, “Bénédictine”] -\> [“Bénédictine”, …]
- [“Bee’s”, “bees”,] -\> [“Bee's Knees”]
**CURRENT SETUP**
Here is my setting:
```
settings: {
analysis: {
char_filter: {
"my_char_filter": {
type: "mapping",
mappings: [
"' => ",
"’ => ",
]
}
},
filter: {
"my_word_delimiter": {
type: "word_delimiter",
}
},
analyzer: {
"autocomplete": {
type: "custom",
tokenizer: "autocomplete_tokenizer",
char_filter: ["my_char_filter"],
filter: ["lowercase", "asciifolding", "my_word_delimiter"],
},
},
tokenizer: {
"autocomplete_tokenizer": {
type: "edge_ngram",
min_gram: 1,
max_gram: 20,
token_chars: ["letter", "digit"],
}
}
},
},
mappings: {
properties: {
name: { type: "text", analyzer: "autocomplete" },
}
}
```
Here is my query:
```
query: {
match: {
name: {
query: search_query,
analyzer: "autocomplete",
boost: 1
}
}
}
```
**PROBLEM**
It works great until I index anything with digits, like “3 dolla”, “49th street”.
If I do, im getting this error:
```
{"type"=>"illegal_argument_exception", "reason"=>"startOffset must be non-negative, and endOffset must be >= startOffset, and offsets must not go backwards startOffset=0,endOffset=2,lastStartOffset=2 for field 'name'"} on item with id …
```
If I understand correctly, its the problem with edge\_ngram tokenizer. I’ve tried to move it to the filter and it resolves the error but then the quality of the search results is simply terrible.
I would appreciate if someone could help me fix this or point to the right direction in docs/google.
Im super lost and stuck.
Thank you
---
### Author:  [@RabBit\_BR](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/RabBit_BR)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2023, 2:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-as-you-type-for-documents-with-digits-unicode-and-special-characters/326005/2 "2023-02-21T02:06:22Z")
Hi @zdebyman
Perhaps this example could be a good place to start. You say you want to have a search-as-you-type autocomplete but I don't see the search-as-you-type in your mapping.
The example below uses your char filter + search-as-you-type. Maybe with some changes you can already get the expected results.
Mapping:
```auto
PUT test
{
"settings": {
"analysis": {
"char_filter": {
"my_char_filter": {
"type": "mapping",
"mappings": [
"' => ",
"’ => "
]
}
},
"analyzer": {
"autocomplete": {
"type": "custom",
"tokenizer": "standard",
"char_filter": [
"my_char_filter"
],
"filter": [
"lowercase",
"asciifolding"
]
}
}
}
},
"mappings": {
"properties": {
"my_field": {
"type": "search_as_you_type",
"analyzer": "autocomplete"
}
}
}
}
```
Docs:
```auto
POST test/_bulk
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"O/Purist Tsipouro"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"Southside"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"South Side"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"Bénédictine"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"Piña Colada"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"Bee's Knees"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"Beer"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"49th Street"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"49 Warriors"}
{"index":{}}
{"my_field":"3 Dolla"}
```
Query
```auto
GET test/_search
{
"query": {
"multi_match": {
"query": "bee's",
"type": "bool_prefix",
"fields": [
"my_field",
"my_field._2gram",
"my_field._3gram"
]
}
}
}
```
---
### Author:  [@zdebyman](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/zdebyman)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2023, 9:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-as-you-type-for-documents-with-digits-unicode-and-special-characters/326005/3 "2023-02-27T21:46:26Z")
This is great! Added word\_delimiter filter and it pretty much did what i want. Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2023, 9:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-as-you-type-for-documents-with-digits-unicode-and-special-characters/326005/4 "2023-03-27T21:47:02Z")
This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.