ElasticSearch/Lucene query string — select "field X exists"

Question

How do I query ElasticSearch through Kibana to select items that have field X?

For example, I have a mapping with fields {"a": {"type": "string"}, "b": {"type": "string"}}, and two documents

{"a": "lalala"}
{"a": "enoheo", "b": "nthtnhnt"}

I want to find the second document without knowing what its b actually is.

James · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-01 18:14:32Z

15

It's been a while since these answers were given. In case anyone needs a more updated answer, the docs now give this example for selecting results that have a certain field.

In query-string syntax:

where the field title has any non-null value:
_exists_:title

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/query-dsl-query-string-query.html#_field_names

answered Sep 1, 2020 at 18:14

James

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Sloan Ahrens · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-13 14:37:16Z

8

Use the exists filter, like:

POST /test_index/_search
{
    "filter": {
        "exists": {
           "field": "b"
        }
    }
}

EDIT: If you need a Lucene query-string query, this should do it:

POST /test_index/_search
{
   "query": {
      "query_string": {
         "query": "b:*"
      }
   }
}

Here is some code I used to test it:

http://sense.qbox.io/gist/ad336a0888a279bfdace03e217bf1915adbf0fe2

edited May 13, 2015 at 14:37

answered May 13, 2015 at 14:01

Sloan Ahrens

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3 Comments

Mischa Arefiev Over a year ago

I want it to work with Kibana with the Lucene query string, not the query DSL.

Nathan Reese Over a year ago

What about the negative case? How would you use the lucene query-string to test that a field does not exist?

christian Over a year ago

For the negative case, putting a minus in front of the query seems to work: "-b:*"

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