# Search for documents matching all terms in a nested array

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-for-documents-matching-all-terms-in-a-nested-array/118577>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 6, 2018, 8:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-for-documents-matching-all-terms-in-a-nested-array/118577 "2018-02-06T08:20:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mayur822](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mayur822/32/38882_2.png) [@mayur822](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mayur822)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 8:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-for-documents-matching-all-terms-in-a-nested-array/118577/1 "2018-02-06T08:20:22Z")

</div>

I am learning to use Elasticsearch as a basic recommender engine. My elasticsearch document contains records with nested entities as follows

```
PUT recs/user/1
{
  "name" : "Brad Pitt",
  "movies_liked": [
    {
      "name": "Forrest Gump",
      "score": 1
    },
    {
      "name": "Terminator",
      "score": 4
    },
    {
      "name": "Rambo",
      "score": 4
    },
    {
      "name": "Rocky",
      "score": 4
    },
    {
      "name": "Good Will Hunting",
      "score": 2
    }
  ]
}

PUT recs/user/2
{
  "name" : "Tom Cruise",
  "movies_liked": [
    {
      "name": "Forrest Gump",
      "score": 2
    },
    {
      "name": "Terminator",
      "score": 1
    },
    {
      "name": "Rocky IV",
      "score": 1
    },
    {
      "name": "Rocky",
      "score": 1
    },
    {
      "name": "Rocky II",
      "score": 1
    },
    {
      "name": "Predator",
      "score": 4
    }
  ]
}

```

The mapping is

`{ "mappings": { "user": { "properties": { "name": { "type": "text", "analyzer": "standard", "search_analyzer": "standard" }, "movies_liked": { "type": "nested", "properties": { "name": { "type": "keyword" }, "score": { "type": "double" } } }, "required_matches": { "type": "long" } } } } }`

I would like to search for users who specifically like "Forrest Gump","Terminator" and "Rambo".

I have used a nested query which currently looks like this

```
POST recs/user/_search
{
  "query": {
    "nested": {
      "path": "movies_liked",
      "query": {
        "terms": {
          "movies_liked.name": ["Forrest Gump","Terminator","Rambo"]

          }
        }

    }
  }
}

```

However when I execute this search, I expected to see only the first record which has all the required terms, but in the results I am getting both the records. In the second record the user clearly does not have "Rambo" in his liked list. I understand that this query is doing an "OR" operation with the given terms, How do I tweak this query to do an "AND" operation so that only the records having all the terms get matched?

P.S I also tried the match query as follows, but this returns no results

```
POST recs/user/_search
{
  "query": {
    "nested": {
      "path": "movies_liked",
      "query": {
        "bool": {
          "must": [
            {
              "term": {
                "movies_liked.name": "Forrest Gump"
              }
            },
            {
              "term": {
                "movies_liked.name": "Rambo"
              }
            },
            {
              "term": {
                "movies_liked.name": "Terminator"
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
  }
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mnozawa](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mnozawa/32/15091_2.png) [@mnozawa](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mnozawa)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-for-documents-matching-all-terms-in-a-nested-array/118577/2 "2018-02-06T10:24:36Z")

</div>

Hi,

How about a query like this?

```
GET recs/user/_search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {
          "nested": {
            "path": "movies_liked",
            "query": {
              "term": {
                "movies_liked.name": {
                  "value": "Forrest Gump"
                }
              }
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "nested": {
            "path": "movies_liked",
            "query": {
              "term": {
                "movies_liked.name": {
                  "value": "Rambo"
                }
              }
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "nested": {
            "path": "movies_liked",
            "query": {
              "term": {
                "movies_liked.name": {
                  "value": "Terminator"
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

```

Regards,

Makoto

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mayur822](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mayur822/32/38882_2.png) [@mayur822](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mayur822)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-for-documents-matching-all-terms-in-a-nested-array/118577/3 "2018-02-06T10:28:40Z")

</div>

Thank you very much. It did not occur to me to use nested within must clause. This is working!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 10:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-for-documents-matching-all-terms-in-a-nested-array/118577/4 "2018-03-06T10:29:15Z")

</div>

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