elasticsearch bool query combine must with OR

I finally managed to create a query that does exactly what i wanted to have:

A filtered nested boolean query. I am not sure why this is not documented. Maybe someone here can tell me?

Here is the query:

GET /test/object/_search
{
  "from": 0,
  "size": 20,
  "sort": {
    "_score": "desc"
  },
  "query": {
    "filtered": {
      "filter": {
        "bool": {
          "must": [
            {
              "term": {
                "state": 1
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      },
      "query": {
        "bool": {
          "should": [
            {
              "bool": {
                "must": [
                  {
                    "match": {
                      "name": "foo"
                    }
                  },
                  {
                    "match": {
                      "name": "bar"
                    }
                  }
                ],
                "should": [
                  {
                    "match": {
                      "has_image": {
                        "query": 1,
                        "boost": 100
                      }
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            },
            {
              "bool": {
                "must": [
                  {
                    "match": {
                      "info": "foo"
                    }
                  },
                  {
                    "match": {
                      "info": "bar"
                    }
                  }
                ],
                "should": [
                  {
                    "match": {
                      "has_image": {
                        "query": 1,
                        "boost": 100
                      }
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "minimum_should_match": 1
        }
      }    
    }
  }
}

In pseudo-SQL:

SELECT * FROM /test/object
WHERE 
    ((name=foo AND name=bar) OR (info=foo AND info=bar))
AND state=1

Please keep in mind that it depends on your document field analysis and mappings how name=foo is internally handled. This can vary from a fuzzy to strict behavior.

"minimum_should_match": 1 says, that at least one of the should statements must be true.

This statements means that whenever there is a document in the resultset that contains has_image:1 it is boosted by factor 100. This changes result ordering.

"should": [
  {
    "match": {
      "has_image": {
        "query": 1,
        "boost": 100
      }
    }
   }
 ]

Have fun guys :)


  • OR is spelled should
  • AND is spelled must
  • NOR is spelled should_not

Example:

You want to see all the items that are (round AND (red OR blue)):

    {
        "query": {
            "bool": {
                "must": [
                    {
                        "term": {"shape": "round"}
                    },
                    {
                        "bool": {
                            "should": [
                                {"term": {"color": "red"}},
                                {"term": {"color": "blue"}
                            ]
                        }
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    }

You can also do more complex versions of OR, for example if you want to match at least 3 out of 5, you can specify 5 options under "should" and set a "minimum_should" of 3.

Thanks to Glen Thompson and Sebastialonso for finding where my nesting wasn't quite right before.

Thanks also to Fatmajk for pointing out that "term" becomes "match" in ElasticSearch 6.