Elasticsearch Array Intersect Query

Question

I'm trying to filter results based on whether an array field has at least one element from another set.

I have a field containing an array of strings eg:

_source: {
...
keywords: [
"Data Science",
"Chemistry",
"Biology",
"Computer Science",
"Economics"
]
}

I'd like to filter the results such that keywords contain at least one of a list of values, eg:

> ["History","Biology"] # would return the above document
> ["History","Geography"] # would not

It doesn't really matter how many it contains, just that it matches at least one of them.

I tried the terms query, but that does not give me any results

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '20 at 20:45

The terms query is an OR-query by default so the following will match

{
  "query": {
    "terms": {
      "keywords": [
        "Chemistry",
        "Geography"
      ]
    }
  }
}

if your condition such that keywords contain at least one is to be satisfied.

Now, if the requirement is to use an AND query (if one more more do not match, return null), you can use a bool-must query

{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {
          "term": {
            "keywords": {
              "value": "Chemistry"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "term": {
            "keywords": {
              "value": "Geography"
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Depending on the mapping you may need to append .keyword to the field in question.

This helped, but it is also returning docs where keyword contains a substring of my keyword search term. Using your first example I am even getting docs which have "Organic Chemistry" — Prim, Sep 14 '20 at 12:40

Elasticsearch Array Intersect Query

1 Answers1