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WARNING: Version 5.1 of Elasticsearch has passed its EOL date.

This documentation is no longer being maintained and may be removed. If you are running this version, we strongly advise you to upgrade. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

« Match Phrase Query Multi Match Query »
Elastic Docs ›Elasticsearch Guide [5.1] ›Query DSL ›Full text queries

Match Phrase Prefix Query

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Match Phrase Prefix Query

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The match_phrase_prefix is the same as match_phrase, except that it allows for prefix matches on the last term in the text. For example:

GET /_search
{
    "query": {
        "match_phrase_prefix" : {
            "message" : "quick brown f"
        }
    }
}
Copy as curlTry in Elastic 

It accepts the same parameters as the phrase type. In addition, it also accepts a max_expansions parameter (default 50) that can control to how many suffixes the last term will be expanded. It is highly recommended to set it to an acceptable value to control the execution time of the query. For example:

GET /_search
{
    "query": {
        "match_phrase_prefix" : {
            "message" : {
                "query" : "quick brown f",
                "max_expansions" : 10
            }
        }
    }
}
Copy as curlTry in Elastic 

The match_phrase_prefix query is a poor-man’s autocomplete. It is very easy to use, which lets you get started quickly with search-as-you-type but its results, which usually are good enough, can sometimes be confusing.

Consider the query string quick brown f. This query works by creating a phrase query out of quick and brown (i.e. the term quick must exist and must be followed by the term brown). Then it looks at the sorted term dictionary to find the first 50 terms that begin with f, and adds these terms to the phrase query.

The problem is that the first 50 terms may not include the term fox so the phrase quick brown fox will not be found. This usually isn’t a problem as the user will continue to type more letters until the word they are looking for appears.

For better solutions for search-as-you-type see the completion suggester and Index-Time Search-as-You-Type.

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