# Searching for a reserved word (OR) **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [January 12, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-a-reserved-word-or/3767 "2011-01-12T03:30:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![searchersteve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/searchersteve/32/3008_2.png) [@searchersteve](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/searchersteve)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-a-reserved-word-or/3767/1 "2011-01-12T03:30:21Z")
I am trying to run a filter on a field that contains abbreviations for US states. My index contains documents where state=WA and where state=OR. The search works correctly on state=WA, but if I run the identical search for state=OR, I get no hits. No errors -- just no hits. Is this because "or" is a reserved word and, if so, then how do I work around this issue? ---
**Author:** ![Clinton\_Gormley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Clinton\_Gormley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clinton_Gormley)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 10:12am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-a-reserved-word-or/3767/2 "2011-01-12T10:12:32Z")
On Tue, 2011-01-11 at 19:30 -0800, searchersteve wrote: > I am trying to run a filter on a field that contains abbreviations for US > states. My index contains documents where state=WA and where state=OR. The > search works correctly on state=WA, but if I run the identical search for > state=OR, I get no hits. No errors -- just no hits. > > Is this because "or" is a reserved word and, if so, then how do I work > around this issue? Correct. OR is a boolean operator in the Lucene query syntax. [http://lucene.apache.org/java/3\_0\_0/queryparsersyntax.html](http://lucene.apache.org/java/3_0_0/queryparsersyntax.html) Given that state definitions are well defined entities, you probably want to store them as not\_analyzed [http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/mapping/core\_types/#String](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/mapping/core_types/#String) Then, instead of including the state abbreviation in the query term search, you probably want to filter your results with a term filter [http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/term\_filter](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/term_filter) eg : curl -XGET '[http://127.0.0.1:9200/\_all/\_search](http://127.0.0.1:9200/_all/_search)' -d ' { "query" : { "filtered" : { "query" : { "field" : { "\_all" : "keywords to find" } }, "filter" : { "term" : { "state" : "OR" } } } } } ' Note: terms are not analyzed at all, so if you index the state as 'OR' then you must filter for it as 'OR', not 'Or' or 'or' clint ---
**Author:** ![searchersteve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/searchersteve/32/3008_2.png) [@searchersteve](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/searchersteve)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-a-reserved-word-or/3767/3 "2011-01-13T21:47:03Z")
On Tue, 2011-01-11 at 19:30 -0800, searchersteve wrote: \> I am trying to run a filter on a field that contains abbreviations for US \> states. My index contains documents where state=WA and where state=OR. The \> search works correctly on state=WA, but if I run the identical search for \> state=OR, I get no hits. No errors -- just no hits. \> \> Is this because "or" is a reserved word and, if so, then how do I work \> around this issue? Correct. OR is a boolean operator in the Lucene query syntax. [http://lucene.apache.org/java/3\_0\_0/queryparsersyntax.html](http://lucene.apache.org/java/3_0_0/queryparsersyntax.html) Given that state definitions are well defined entities, you probably want to store them as not\_analyzed [http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/mapping/core\_types/#String](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/mapping/core_types/#String) Then, instead of including the state abbreviation in the query term search, you probably want to filter your results with a term filter [http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest\_api/query\_dsl/term\_filter](http://www.elasticsearch.com/docs/elasticsearch/rest_api/query_dsl/term_filter) eg : curl -XGET '[http://127.0.0.1:9200/\_all/\_search](http://127.0.0.1:9200/_all/_search)' -d ' { "query" : { "filtered" : { "query" : { "field" : { "\_all" : "keywords to find" } }, "filter" : { "term" : { "state" : "OR" } } } } } ' Note: terms are not analyzed at all, so if you index the state as 'OR' then you must filter for it as 'OR', not 'Or' or 'or' clint Thanks!!! I was, in fact, searching for state with a filter, but I did not know about the not\_analyzed solution. I am realizing that I have a number of fields that are like this (discrete and predictable values), and I suspect that I could improve indexing speed quite a bit if I selected not\_analyzed. I'll try out your suggestion and let you know if problems arise. Thanks again for the schooling. Steve ---
**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, 4:13am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-a-reserved-word-or/3767/4 "2017-07-06T04:13:57Z")