# Whats the best way to query exact match and full text at the same time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [January 30, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/whats-the-best-way-to-query-exact-match-and-full-text-at-the-same-time/166430 "2019-01-30T20:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Drammy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drammy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Drammy)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/whats-the-best-way-to-query-exact-match-and-full-text-at-the-same-time/166430/1 "2019-01-30T20:39:31Z")
Hi all, I had an ES search running on ES 2 that was working as I hoped but since upgrading to ES5 and subsequently to ES 6 the relevance has degraded somewhat (probably due to poor DSL I guess). Its just a shame that it was working nicely and now isn't. So we have a number of documents that contain some codes such as '1/2' or '000045/000009' as well lots of bespoke screen text (from a third party application). We have a single 'search everything' input box and go button, a la Google, which has stopped providing the relevance we got used to with ES2. As part of the upgrade we changed the Code field to be stored as a keyword and the screen text is still stored as text (there's a lot of this; lots of names and addresses mostly, amongst other types of data). I was hoping someone might be able to help shed light on why the query below isn't returning a document with a code exactly matching '1/2' as the first hit? I get about 140 hits before it where the is a number 1 or 2 somewhere on a piece of screen data..? ``` { "query": { "bool": { "filter": [ { "terms": { "systemId": [ 1, 2 ] } } ], "minimum_should_match": 1, "should": [ { "multi_match": { "fields": [ "code", "code.standard", "name", "notes", "notes.english", "shortName" ], "query": "1/2", "type": "best_fields" } }, { "nested": { "path": "matterKeyDates", "query": { "multi_match": { "fields": [ "matterKeyDates.notes", "matterKeyDates.notes.english" ], "query": "1/2", "type": "best_fields" } } } }, { "nested": { "path": "screenData", "query": { "multi_match": { "fields": [ "screenData.valueString", "screenData.valueString.english" ], "query": "1/2", "type": "best_fields" } } } } ] } }, "size": 10, "_source": { "excludes": [ "screenData.*" ] } } ``` Any help appreciated ... 😄 ---
**Author:** ![Drammy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drammy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Drammy)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 9:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/whats-the-best-way-to-query-exact-match-and-full-text-at-the-same-time/166430/2 "2019-01-31T09:54:30Z")
So I thought I'd expand the problem with a replication script... ``` PUT tests PUT tests/test/_mapping { "test" : { "dynamic" : "false", "date_detection" : false, "numeric_detection" : false, "properties" : { "code" : { "type" : "keyword" }, "screenData" : { "type" : "nested", "dynamic" : "false", "properties" : { "valueString" : { "type" : "text" } } } } } } PUT tests/test/1 { "code": "1/1", "screenData": [ { "valueString": "1 smith road" }, { "valueString": "2 smith road" } ] } PUT tests/test/2 { "code": "1/2", "screenData": [ { "valueString": "3 smith road" }, { "valueString": "4 smith road" } ] } GET tests/_search { "query": { "bool": { "minimum_should_match": 1, "should": [ { "multi_match": { "fields": [ "code" ], "query": "1/2" } }, { "nested": { "path": "screenData", "query": { "multi_match": { "fields": [ "screenData.valueString", "screenData.valueString.english" ], "query": "1/2" } } } } ] } }, "size": 10, "_source": { "excludes": [ "screenData.*" ] } } ``` In this example document 2 scores higher than document 1. I would expect the keyword exact match to score higher than hits on the screenData.. I'd prefer to not start boosting here and there and am sure there should be a way to better write the query to ensure exact matches on keywords score higher than full text matches. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Harwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mark_harwood/32/10538_2.png) [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 1:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/whats-the-best-way-to-query-exact-match-and-full-text-at-the-same-time/166430/3 "2019-01-31T13:27:01Z")
You can use this in your query to look at the details of scores: ``` "explain": true, ``` Using that I can see that doc 1 scores highly because it matches two tokens `1` and `2` whereas document 2 only matches one token `1/2`. All tokens are of equal rarity and therefore value. The solution is not for me to recommend a fix for this single scenario. You need to come up with a search template for handling user input that performs well across a whole range of queries. What fixes one query may be detrimental to many others. Querying across multiple fields is one of the more complex things to get right in a search application and [whole books](https://www.manning.com/books/relevant-search) have been written on the subject. The `explain` feature is your friend on this journey ---
**Author:** ![Drammy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drammy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Drammy)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:55am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/whats-the-best-way-to-query-exact-match-and-full-text-at-the-same-time/166430/4 "2019-02-01T09:55:23Z")
Thanks Mark ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 9:55am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/whats-the-best-way-to-query-exact-match-and-full-text-at-the-same-time/166430/5 "2019-03-01T09:55:31Z")
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