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Simple Query String Query

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Simple Query String Query

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A query that uses the SimpleQueryParser to parse its context. Unlike the regular query_string query, the simple_query_string query will never throw an exception, and discards invalid parts of the query. Here is an example:

{
    "simple_query_string" : {
        "query": "\"fried eggs\" +(eggplant | potato) -frittata",
        "analyzer": "snowball",
        "fields": ["body^5","_all"],
        "default_operator": "and"
    }
}

The simple_query_string top level parameters include:

Parameter	Description
`query`	The actual query to be parsed. See below for syntax.
`fields`	The fields to perform the parsed query against. Defaults to the `index.query.default_field` index settings, which in turn defaults to `_all`.
`default_operator`	The default operator used if no explicit operator is specified. For example, with a default operator of `OR`, the query `capital of Hungary` is translated to `capital OR of OR Hungary`, and with default operator of `AND`, the same query is translated to `capital AND of AND Hungary`. The default value is `OR`.
`analyzer`	The analyzer used to analyze each term of the query when creating composite queries.
`flags`	Flags specifying which features of the `simple_query_string` to enable. Defaults to `ALL`.
`lowercase_expanded_terms`	Whether terms of prefix and fuzzy queries should be automatically lower-cased or not (since they are not analyzed). Defaults to `true`.
`analyze_wildcard`	Whether terms of prefix queries should be automatically analyzed or not. If `true` a best effort will be made to analyze the prefix. However, some analyzers will be not able to provide a meaningful results based just on the prefix of a term. Defaults to `false`.
`locale`	Locale that should be used for string conversions. Defaults to `ROOT`.
`lenient`	If set to `true` will cause format based failures (like providing text to a numeric field) to be ignored.
`minimum_should_match`	The minimum number of clauses that must match for a document to be returned. See the `minimum_should_match` documentation for the full list of options.

Simple Query String Syntax

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The simple_query_string supports the following special characters:

+ signifies AND operation
| signifies OR operation
- negates a single token
" wraps a number of tokens to signify a phrase for searching
* at the end of a term signifies a prefix query
( and ) signify precedence
~N after a word signifies edit distance (fuzziness)
~N after a phrase signifies slop amount

In order to search for any of these special characters, they will need to be escaped with \.

Default Field

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When not explicitly specifying the field to search on in the query string syntax, the index.query.default_field will be used to derive which field to search on. It defaults to _all field.

So, if _all field is disabled, it might make sense to change it to set a different default field.

Multi Field

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The fields parameter can also include pattern based field names, allowing to automatically expand to the relevant fields (dynamically introduced fields included). For example:

{
    "simple_query_string" : {
        "fields" : ["content", "name.*^5"],
        "query" : "foo bar baz"
    }
}

Flags

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simple_query_string support multiple flags to specify which parsing features should be enabled. It is specified as a |-delimited string with the flags parameter:

{
    "simple_query_string" : {
        "query" : "foo | bar + baz*",
        "flags" : "OR|AND|PREFIX"
    }
}

The available flags are: ALL, NONE, AND, OR, NOT, PREFIX, PHRASE, PRECEDENCE, ESCAPE, WHITESPACE, FUZZY, NEAR, and SLOP.

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