The multi_match
query builds on the match
query to allow multi-field queries:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "this is a test", "fields": [ "subject", "message" ] } } }
Fields can be specified with wildcards, eg:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "Will Smith", "fields": [ "title", "*_name" ] } } }
title
, first_name
and last_name
fields.Individual fields can be boosted with the caret (^
) notation:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query" : "this is a test", "fields" : [ "subject^3", "message" ] } } }
subject
fieldâs score by three but leaves the message
fieldâs score unchanged.If no fields
are provided, the multi_match
query defaults to the index.query.default_field
index settings, which in turn defaults to *
. *
extracts all fields in the mapping that are eligible to term queries and filters the metadata fields. All extracted fields are then combined to build a query.
Field number limit
By default, there is a limit to the number of clauses a query can contain. This limit is defined by the indices.query.bool.max_clause_count
setting, which defaults to 4096
. For multi-match queries, the number of clauses is calculated as the number of fields multiplied by the number of terms.
The way the multi_match
query is executed internally depends on the type
parameter, which can be set to:
best_fields
_score
from the best field. See best_fields
.
most_fields
_score
from each field. See most_fields
.
cross_fields
analyzer
as though they were one big field. Looks for each word in any field. See cross_fields
.
phrase
match_phrase
query on each field and uses the _score
from the best field. See phrase
and phrase_prefix
.
phrase_prefix
match_phrase_prefix
query on each field and uses the _score
from the best field. See phrase
and phrase_prefix
.
bool_prefix
match_bool_prefix
query on each field and combines the _score
from each field. See bool_prefix
.
The best_fields
type is most useful when you are searching for multiple words best found in the same field. For instance brown fox in a single field is more meaningful than brown in one field and fox in the other.
The best_fields
type generates a match
query for each field and wraps them in a dis_max
query, to find the single best matching field. For instance, this query:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "brown fox", "type": "best_fields", "fields": [ "subject", "message" ], "tie_breaker": 0.3 } } }
would be executed as:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "dis_max": { "queries": [ { "match": { "subject": "brown fox" }}, { "match": { "message": "brown fox" }} ], "tie_breaker": 0.3 } } }
Normally the best_fields
type uses the score of the single best matching field, but if tie_breaker
is specified, then it calculates the score as follows:
tie_breaker * _score
for all other matching fieldsAlso, accepts analyzer
, boost
, operator
, minimum_should_match
, fuzziness
, lenient
, prefix_length
, max_expansions
, fuzzy_rewrite
, zero_terms_query
, auto_generate_synonyms_phrase_query
and fuzzy_transpositions
, as explained in match query.
operator and minimum_should_match
The best_fields
and most_fields
types are field-centric â they generate a match
query per field. This means that the operator
and minimum_should_match
parameters are applied to each field individually, which is probably not what you want.
Take this query for example:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "Will Smith", "type": "best_fields", "fields": [ "first_name", "last_name" ], "operator": "and" } } }
This query is executed as:
(+first_name:will +first_name:smith)
| (+last_name:will +last_name:smith)
In other words, all terms must be present in a single field for a document to match.
The combined_fields
query offers a term-centric approach that handles operator
and minimum_should_match
on a per-term basis. The other multi-match mode cross_fields
also addresses this issue.
The most_fields
type is most useful when querying multiple fields that contain the same text analyzed in different ways. For instance, the main field may contain synonyms, stemming and terms without diacritics. A second field may contain the original terms, and a third field might contain shingles. By combining scores from all three fields we can match as many documents as possible with the main field, but use the second and third fields to push the most similar results to the top of the list.
This query:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "quick brown fox", "type": "most_fields", "fields": [ "title", "title.original", "title.shingles" ] } } }
would be executed as:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "bool": { "should": [ { "match": { "title": "quick brown fox" }}, { "match": { "title.original": "quick brown fox" }}, { "match": { "title.shingles": "quick brown fox" }} ] } } }
The score from each match
clause is added together, just like a bool
query.
Also, accepts analyzer
, boost
, operator
, minimum_should_match
, fuzziness
, lenient
, prefix_length
, max_expansions
, fuzzy_rewrite
, and zero_terms_query
.
The phrase
and phrase_prefix
types behave just like best_fields
, but they use a match_phrase
or match_phrase_prefix
query instead of a match
query.
This query:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "quick brown f", "type": "phrase_prefix", "fields": [ "subject", "message" ] } } }
would be executed as:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "dis_max": { "queries": [ { "match_phrase_prefix": { "subject": "quick brown f" }}, { "match_phrase_prefix": { "message": "quick brown f" }} ] } } }
Also, accepts analyzer
, boost
, lenient
and zero_terms_query
as explained in Match, as well as slop
which is explained in Match phrase. Type phrase_prefix
additionally accepts max_expansions
.
phrase, phrase_prefix and fuzziness
The fuzziness
parameter cannot be used with the phrase
or phrase_prefix
type.
The cross_fields
type is particularly useful with structured documents where multiple fields should match. For instance, when querying the first_name
and last_name
fields for Will Smith, the best match is likely to have Will in one field and Smith in the other.
Admonition
This sounds like a job for most_fields
but there are two problems with that approach. The first problem is that operator
and minimum_should_match
are applied per-field, instead of per-term (see explanation above).
The second problem is to do with relevance: the different term frequencies in the first_name
and last_name
fields can produce unexpected results.
For instance, imagine we have two people: Will Smith and Smith Jones. Smith as a last name is very common (and so is of low importance) but Smith as a first name is very uncommon (and so is of great importance).
If we do a search for Will Smith, the Smith Jones document will probably appear above the better matching Will Smith because the score of first_name:smith
has trumped the combined scores of first_name:will
plus last_name:smith
.
One way of dealing with these types of queries is simply to index the first_name
and last_name
fields into a single full_name
field. Of course, this can only be done at index time.
The cross_field
type tries to solve these problems at query time by taking a term-centric approach. It first analyzes the query string into individual terms, then looks for each term in any of the fields, as though they were one big field.
A query like:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "Will Smith", "type": "cross_fields", "fields": [ "first_name", "last_name" ], "operator": "and" } } }
is executed as:
+(first_name:will last_name:will)
+(first_name:smith last_name:smith)
In other words, all terms must be present in at least one field for a document to match. (Compare this to the logic used for best_fields
and most_fields
.)
That solves one of the two problems. The problem of differing term frequencies is solved by blending the term frequencies for all fields in order to even out the differences.
In practice, first_name:smith
will be treated as though it has the same frequencies as last_name:smith
, plus one. This will make matches on first_name
and last_name
have comparable scores, with a tiny advantage for last_name
since it is the most likely field that contains smith
.
Note that cross_fields
is usually only useful on short string fields that all have a boost
of 1
. Otherwise boosts, term freqs and length normalization contribute to the score in such a way that the blending of term statistics is not meaningful anymore.
If you run the above query through the Validate, it returns this explanation:
+blended("will", fields: [first_name, last_name])
+blended("smith", fields: [first_name, last_name])
Also, accepts analyzer
, boost
, operator
, minimum_should_match
, lenient
and zero_terms_query
.
Warning
The cross_fields
type blends field statistics in a complex way that can be hard to interpret. The score combination can even be incorrect, in particular when some documents contain some of the search fields, but not all of them. You should consider the combined_fields
query as an alternative, which is also term-centric but combines field statistics in a more robust way.
The cross_field
type can only work in term-centric mode on fields that have the same analyzer. Fields with the same analyzer are grouped together as in the example above. If there are multiple groups, the query will use the best score from any group.
For instance, if we have a first
and last
field which have the same analyzer, plus a first.edge
and last.edge
which both use an edge_ngram
analyzer, this query:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "Jon", "type": "cross_fields", "fields": [ "first", "first.edge", "last", "last.edge" ] } } }
would be executed as:
blended("jon", fields: [first, last])
| (
blended("j", fields: [first.edge, last.edge])
blended("jo", fields: [first.edge, last.edge])
blended("jon", fields: [first.edge, last.edge])
)
In other words, first
and last
would be grouped together and treated as a single field, and first.edge
and last.edge
would be grouped together and treated as a single field.
Having multiple groups is fine, but when combined with operator
or minimum_should_match
, it can suffer from the same problem as most_fields
or best_fields
.
You can easily rewrite this query yourself as two separate cross_fields
queries combined with a dis_max
query, and apply the minimum_should_match
parameter to just one of them:
GET /_search
{ "query": { "dis_max": { "queries": [ { "multi_match" : { "query": "Will Smith", "type": "cross_fields", "fields": [ "first", "last" ], "minimum_should_match": "50%" } }, { "multi_match" : { "query": "Will Smith", "type": "cross_fields", "fields": [ "*.edge" ] } } ] } } }
will
or smith
must be present in either of the first
or last
fieldsYou can force all fields into the same group by specifying the analyzer
parameter in the query.
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "Jon", "type": "cross_fields", "analyzer": "standard", "fields": [ "first", "last", "*.edge" ] } } }
standard
analyzer for all fields.which will be executed as:
blended("will", fields: [first, first.edge, last.edge, last])
blended("smith", fields: [first, first.edge, last.edge, last])
By default, each per-term blended
query will use the best score returned by any field in a group. Then when combining scores across groups, the query uses the best score from any group. The tie_breaker
parameter can change the behavior for both of these steps:
0.0
first_name:will
and last_name:will
(default)
1.0
first_name:will
and last_name:will
0.0 < n < 1.0
tie_breaker
multiplied by each of the scores from other matching fields/ groups
cross_fields and fuzziness
The fuzziness
parameter cannot be used with the cross_fields
type.
The bool_prefix
typeâs scoring behaves like most_fields
, but using a match_bool_prefix
query instead of a match
query.
GET /_search
{ "query": { "multi_match" : { "query": "quick brown f", "type": "bool_prefix", "fields": [ "subject", "message" ] } } }
The analyzer
, boost
, operator
, minimum_should_match
, lenient
, zero_terms_query
, and auto_generate_synonyms_phrase_query
parameters as explained in match query are supported. The fuzziness
, prefix_length
, max_expansions
, fuzzy_rewrite
, and fuzzy_transpositions
parameters are supported for the terms that are used to construct term queries, but do not have an effect on the prefix query constructed from the final term.
The slop
parameter is not supported by this query type.
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