# Short Questions

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [January 18, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413 "2013-01-18T19:48:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Cristian_Mihai_Barca)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413/1 "2013-01-18T19:48:22Z")

</div>

Hi,

First of all, I am new to ElasticSearch so if I do "noobish" mistakes or I  
have omitted something in the documentation please bare with me :).

I have some short questions

1. is it possible to define into the mapping a "\_customField" (underscored  
field like \_all) as a list of other fields that you might have in the  
indexed doc?

ex:  
{  
"\_en\_fields" : ["en\_title", "en\_message", "en\_tags"]  
}  
\*  
_2) From the site doc:_ "The include\_in\_all setting on the “default” field  
allows to control if the value of the field should be included in the \_allfield. Note, the value of the field is copied to  
\_all, not the tokens. So, it only makes sense to copy the field value once.  
Because of this, the include\_in\_all setting on all non-default fields is  
automatically set to false and can’t be changed."  
\*  
\*"the value of the field is copied to \_all, not the tokens" - \*what do you  
mean by this? Only the "non-analyzed" values of the default fields will be  
aggregated into "\_all" field?

1. What is the most convenient way to implement multi language support but  
also assure that when a mistake is made by the user (i.e. mistake in  
language selection for an input text) the search also retrieves something  
relevant? Should the text be also indexed and stored with the default  
(general) properties? (that would mean -\> 2 x time/space for that index)

2. If a field is only indexed (not stored), could it be retrieved from the  
\_index field?

--

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Cristian_Mihai_Barca)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413/2 "2013-01-19T14:36:02Z")

</div>

--\> last question 4) refers more to the fact that if I could have an  
indexed field "text" which I won't retrieve it from my JSON doc (I would  
like not keep it as it is in the JSON doc) but only using it for search (in  
index) use.

--

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![radu\_gheorghe](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/radu_gheorghe/32/556_2.png) [@radu\_gheorghe](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/radu_gheorghe)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413/3 "2013-01-21T17:52:06Z")

</div>

Hi Cristi. And welcome! 🙂

Unfortunately, I didn't follow the last question you send in a separate  
mail. So maybe you can rephrase.

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 9:48 PM, Cristian Mihai Barca \<  
[cristi.barca@gmail.com](mailto:cristi.barca@gmail.com)\> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> First of all, I am new to Elasticsearch so if I do "noobish" mistakes or I  
> have omitted something in the documentation please bare with me :).
> 
> I have some short questions
> 
> 1. is it possible to define into the mapping a "\_customField" (underscored  
> field like \_all) as a list of other fields that you might have in the  
> indexed doc?
> 
> ex:  
> {  
> "\_en\_fields" : ["en\_title", "en\_message", "en\_tags"]  
> }

Not as far as I know, but there might be some good workarounds for your  
specific usecase.

> - 
> 
> _2) From the site doc:_ "The include\_in\_all setting on the “default”  
> field allows to control if the value of the field should be included in the  
> \_all field. Note, the value of the field is copied to \_all, not the  
> tokens. So, it only makes sense to copy the field value once. Because of  
> this, the include\_in\_all setting on all non-default fields is  
> automatically set to false and can’t be changed."  
> \*  
> \*"the value of the field is copied to \_all, not the tokens" - \*what do  
> you mean by this? Only the "non-analyzed" values of the default fields will  
> be aggregated into "\_all" field?

It means the value from all the included fields will make up the value of  
"\_all", which is analyzed separately (it can have it's own "analyzer"  
setting).

> 1. What is the most convenient way to implement multi language support but  
> also assure that when a mistake is made by the user (i.e. mistake in  
> language selection for an input text) the search also retrieves something  
> relevant? Should the text be also indexed and stored with the default  
> (general) properties? (that would mean -\> 2 x time/space for that index)

Yes, maybe you can make use of the Multi Field type:

> **[Elastic — The Search AI Company](https://www.elastic.co)**
>
> Power insights and outcomes with The Elastic Search AI Platform. See into your data and find answers that matter with enterprise solutions designed to help you accelerate time to insight. Try Elastic ...

> 1. If a field is only indexed (not stored), could it be retrieved from the  
> \_index field?

No, the \_index field stores the Elasticsearch index where the document is  
stored. For example:  
$ curl -XPUT localhost:9200/test\_index/test\_type/1 -d '{"foo":"bar"}'  
{"ok":true,"\_index":"test\_index","\_type":"test\_type","\_id":"1","\_version":1}

You can see there that \_index=test\_index. That's all you can get from the  
"\_index" field.

## Best regards, Radu

[http://sematext.com/](http://sematext.com/) -- Elasticsearch -- Solr -- Lucene

--

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Cristian_Mihai_Barca)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413/4 "2013-01-24T13:53:56Z")

</div>

Hi,

First, thanks for the answer and the welcome message! 🙂

Second, I had some thought on the 3rd question. Is it a good alternative,  
maybe for flexibility, to not use multi\_field for a multi-language field  
but to use separate objects with a prefix of that language? That object  
would include the same fields but from the language it specifies analyzed  
with a custom analyzer. Would it be a problem if, for instance, an item  
won't have "text\_spanish" but in the mapping is specified?

Example of mapping:  
{  
"item" : {  
"properties" : {  
"text\_default": {  
"title" : { ...., "analyzer" : "default" }  
"content" : { ..., "analyzer" : "default"}  
}

```
"text_en" : {
  "title" : { ..., "analyzer" : "en_custom_analyzer" }
  "content" : { ..., "analyzer" : "en_custom_analyzer" }
}

```

}  
"analysis" : {  
...  
}  
}

On Friday, January 18, 2013 8:48:22 PM UTC+1, Cristian Mihai Barca wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> First of all, I am new to Elasticsearch so if I do "noobish" mistakes or I  
> have omitted something in the documentation please bare with me :).
> 
> I have some short questions
> 
> 1. is it possible to define into the mapping a "\_customField" (underscored  
> field like \_all) as a list of other fields that you might have in the  
> indexed doc?
> 
> ex:  
> {  
> "\_en\_fields" : ["en\_title", "en\_message", "en\_tags"]  
> }  
> \*  
> _2) From the site doc:_ "The include\_in\_all setting on the “default”  
> field allows to control if the value of the field should be included in the  
> \_all field. Note, the value of the field is copied to \_all, not the  
> tokens. So, it only makes sense to copy the field value once. Because of  
> this, the include\_in\_all setting on all non-default fields is  
> automatically set to false and can’t be changed."  
> \*  
> \*"the value of the field is copied to \_all, not the tokens" - \*what do  
> you mean by this? Only the "non-analyzed" values of the default fields will  
> be aggregated into "\_all" field?
> 
> 1. What is the most convenient way to implement multi language support but  
> also assure that when a mistake is made by the user (i.e. mistake in  
> language selection for an input text) the search also retrieves something  
> relevant? Should the text be also indexed and stored with the default  
> (general) properties? (that would mean -\> 2 x time/space for that index)
> 
> 2. If a field is only indexed (not stored), could it be retrieved from the  
> \_index field?

--

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Cristian\_Mihai\_Barca](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Cristian_Mihai_Barca)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 3:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413/5 "2013-01-24T15:53:15Z")

</div>

Hi,

I wanted to say **sufix** not **prefix** 🙂

What I meant by being more flexible (in my opinion) is that you can "hit"  
the query on a specific language (contained in map) and on the default as  
"whole" right away. I'm thinking about something like this (I have not  
implemented yet, so I don't know how practical is):

{  
"multi\_match" : {  
"query" : "qu'es que tu fais",  
"fields" : ["text\_default._", "text\_fr._"]  
}  
}

Could you do something like that?

Or boosting the language that you detect the user is searching on:

{  
"multi\_match" : {  
"query" : "this is a test",  
"fields" : ["text\_default._", "text\_en._^2"]  
}  
}

{  
"multi\_match" : {  
"query" : "qu'es que tu fais means what do you do in french",  
"fields" : ["text\_default._", "text\_fr._^2", "text\_en.\*^2"]  
}  
}

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 2:53:56 PM UTC+1, Cristian Mihai Barca wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> First, thanks for the answer and the welcome message! 🙂
> 
> Second, I had some thought on the 3rd question. Is it a good alternative,  
> maybe for flexibility, to not use multi\_field for a multi-language field  
> but to use separate objects with a\* **prefix** \*of that language? That  
> object would include the same fields but from the language it specifies  
> analyzed with a custom analyzer. Would it be a problem if, for instance, an  
> item won't have "text\_spanish" but in the mapping is specified?
> 
> Example of mapping:  
> {  
> "item" : {  
> "properties" : {  
> "text\_default": {  
> "title" : { ...., "analyzer" : "default" }  
> "content" : { ..., "analyzer" : "default"}  
> }
> 
> ```
> "text_en" : {
> "title" : { ..., "analyzer" : "en_custom_analyzer" }
> "content" : { ..., "analyzer" : "en_custom_analyzer" }
> }
> 
> ```
> 
> }  
> "analysis" : {  
> ...  
> }  
> }
> 
> On Friday, January 18, 2013 8:48:22 PM UTC+1, Cristian Mihai Barca wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > First of all, I am new to Elasticsearch so if I do "noobish" mistakes or  
> > I have omitted something in the documentation please bare with me :).
> > 
> > I have some short questions
> > 
> > 1. is it possible to define into the mapping a "\_customField"  
> > (underscored field like \_all) as a list of other fields that you might have  
> > in the indexed doc?
> > 
> > ex:  
> > {  
> > "\_en\_fields" : ["en\_title", "en\_message", "en\_tags"]  
> > }  
> > \*  
> > _2) From the site doc:_ "The include\_in\_all setting on the “default”  
> > field allows to control if the value of the field should be included in the  
> > \_all field. Note, the value of the field is copied to \_all, not the  
> > tokens. So, it only makes sense to copy the field value once. Because of  
> > this, the include\_in\_all setting on all non-default fields is  
> > automatically set to false and can’t be changed."  
> > \*  
> > \*"the value of the field is copied to \_all, not the tokens" - \*what do  
> > you mean by this? Only the "non-analyzed" values of the default fields will  
> > be aggregated into "\_all" field?
> > 
> > 1. What is the most convenient way to implement multi language support  
> > but also assure that when a mistake is made by the user (i.e. mistake in  
> > language selection for an input text) the search also retrieves something  
> > relevant? Should the text be also indexed and stored with the default  
> > (general) properties? (that would mean -\> 2 x time/space for that index)
> > 
> > 2. If a field is only indexed (not stored), could it be retrieved from  
> > the \_index field?

--

---

<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:** [July 6, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/short-questions/10413/6 "2017-07-06T02:54:43Z")

</div>