# Sorting and filterting top hits docs

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 15, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547 "2019-03-15T14:09:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bambula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/51bf81/32.png) [@bambula](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bambula)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/1 "2019-03-15T14:09:03Z")

</div>

HI, is it possible to filter and sort the docs returned from top hits aggregation?

lets say I have a simple product index for docs like this:

```auto
{
   "product_name": "some_product",
   "category": "some_cotegory",
   "price": "200"
   "sold_times": "5",
   "store": "store1"
}

```

and I want to get the most expensive products in their category and per store that have been sold less than 3 times and I want them to be ordered by store, category and price.

I can use two terms aggregations and top hits aggregation (with size=1) to get the most expensive products in their category per store, but how can I sort and filter these top hits results? I really need to filter the results after the top hits agg is performed, so the filter query is not the solution. How can I do this? Thx

EDIT:  
the query to get the most expensive products in their directory per store is as follows:

```auto
POST /products/_search?size=0
{
    "aggs": {
        "by_store": {
            "terms": {
                "field": "store"
            },
            "aggs": {
                "by_category": {
                    "terms": {
                        "field": "category"
                    },
                    "aggs": {
                        "most_expensive": {
                            "top_hits": {
                                "sort": [
                                    {
                                        "price": {
                                            "order": "desc"
                                        }
                                    }
                                ],
                                "size" : 1
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

```

This will return docs (as part of aggregations results) and I want to filter them by sold\_times \< 3 and sort them by store and category and price. So lets say that the most expensive product in category "accessories" is "charger" but this product was sold 5 times, so this most expensive product must be filtered out of the results.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![safwan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/safwan/32/31879_2.png) [@safwan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/safwan)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 10:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/2 "2019-03-15T22:49:29Z")

</div>

Can you share your query so it is possible to understand better?

What about using using [`post_filter`](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-request-post-filter.html)?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bambula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/51bf81/32.png) [@bambula](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bambula)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 10:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/3 "2019-03-16T10:58:07Z")

</div>

Hi. thx for your reply, I added the query to the question. If I understand the post\_filter correctly, it is performed on the original data set (that was used for the aggregations computing) after the aggs were actually computed. But that is not what I need. I need to perform the aggs and then filter the docs returned by the top\_hits agg (not the original data set)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![safwan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/safwan/32/31879_2.png) [@safwan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/safwan)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 8:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/4 "2019-03-16T20:21:24Z")

</div>

I understand your issue after you have posted the query.  
I think you can solve the issue by filtering out the range that you need. You can run [`range`](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/query-dsl-range-query.html) query to select only the products that have `sold_times` \< 3 and then run the aggregation.

Something like following query.

```auto
{ "query": {
        "range" : {
            "sold_times" : {
                "gte" : 0,
                "lte" : 3
            }
        }
    },
    "aggs": {
        "by_store": {
            "terms": {
                "field": "store"
            },
            "aggs": {
                "by_category": {
                    "terms": {
                        "field": "category"
                    },
                    "aggs": {
                        "most_expensive": {
                            "top_hits": {
                                "sort": [
                                    {
                                        "price": {
                                            "order": "desc"
                                        }
                                    }
                                ],
                                "size" : 1
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

```

It will remove the products which have more than `3` `sold_times` first, then run the aggregations.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bambula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/51bf81/32.png) [@bambula](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bambula)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/5 "2019-03-16T20:44:19Z")

</div>

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately this is not what I need. I really need to perform the filter after the aggs.  
Lets say I have two products in category accessories:

```auto
{
   "product_name": "charger",
   "category": "accesories",
   "price": "200",
   "sold_times": "6",
   "store": "store1"
}
{
   "product_name": "headphones",
   "category": "accesories",
   "price": "150",
   "sold_times": "2",
   "store": "store1"
}

```

your approach would remove the charger and keep the headphones. The following aggregation would return the headphones as the most expensive product from category accessories which is not true. For this case I would need to get no result for category accessories, because the most expensive product was sold 6 times so it is not product I'm looking for. I'm not looking for cheaper products that have been sold few times. I'm really looking for those most expensive that have been sold \< 3 times.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![safwan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/safwan/32/31879_2.png) [@safwan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/safwan)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/6 "2019-03-16T21:32:50Z")

</div>

I believe its a complex problem to solve. I am actually not sure whether it can be solved from the elasticsearch end.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![safwan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/safwan/32/31879_2.png) [@safwan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/safwan)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/7 "2019-03-16T22:17:45Z")

</div>

The best I think you can do is ordering the category according to the `max` `sold_times`. And from your application logic, remove the one which have more `sold_items`. You can use `max` aggregator with `top_hits` aggregator.

---

<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:** [April 13, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sorting-and-filterting-top-hits-docs/172547/8 "2019-04-13T22:17:54Z")

</div>

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