wildcard search in elasticsearch

Question

Currently i use below wildcard search for my service,

{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {
          "wildcard": {
            "PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION": "\*collaboration\*services\*shiriyara\*"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

This returns me expected result. But i am looking for alternative ways to achieve this without using wildcard query, as wildcard takes more time.

I tried "query_string" on a "standard" analyzed field. But this returns result if whole word matches.

          "query_string": {
            "default_field": "PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION",
            "default_operator": "AND",
            "query": "collaboration services shiriyara"
          }

If the string is "collab services shiriyara", it won't give any result, whereas wildcard gives.

Let me know, if anybody has thoughts. Index time changes also fine with me.

Adam T Adam T · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-27T10:09:58

You could break up your wildcards as follows, which would work for the example you have given:

GET my_index/_search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {"wildcard": {"PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION": "collab*"}},
        {"wildcard": {"PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION": "serv*"}},
        {"wildcard": {"PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION": "shiri*"}}
      ]
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, you could look at using ngrams at index time, which would allow matching of character sequences within a word.

wildcard search in elasticsearch

2 Answers