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Elasticsearch Fundamentals: Indexing and Querying Data

Compound Queries: Boolean Query

Explore how to construct and execute compound boolean queries in Elasticsearch using must, must_not, should, and filter operators. Learn to create complex search conditions to refine results by combining multiple criteria like category, price, and availability. Gain practical skills to apply these techniques in real-world data retrieval scenarios.

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Boolean query

A boolean query is a compound query type that enables the combination of multiple subqueries using boolean operators. These operators include the following:

  • must: The must clause specifies criteria that must be satisfied by the matching documents. In other words, the documents must match the conditions specified in the must clause to be considered search results.

  • must_not: The must_not clause excludes documents that match the specified conditions. It sets criteria that must not be satisfied by the documents for them to be considered valid matches.

  • should: The should clause specifies the criteria that are desirable but not mandatory for the matching documents. Documents that satisfy the should conditions will have a higher relevance score, making them more likely to appear in the search results. However, documents that do not meet the should conditions can still be considered valid matches.

  • filter: The filter clause is similar to the must clause in terms of mandatory conditions. However, unlike the must clause, the filter clause does not contribute to score calculation. It is primarily used for filtering documents based on specific criteria, such as exact matches or range conditions, without affecting the relevance ranking.

By utilizing boolean queries, we can construct complex search conditions and control the scoring and relevance of the search results.

Boolean query syntax

To execute a boolean query, we can make a ...