Elasticsearch: Querying nested objects - elasticsearch

Question

Dear elasticsearch experts,
i have a problem querying nested objects. Lets use the following simplified mapping:
{
"mappings" : {
"_doc" : {
"properties" : {
"companies" : {
"type": "nested",
"properties" : {
"company_id": { "type": "long" },
"name": { "type": "text" }
}
},
"title": { "type": "text" }
}
}
}
}
And put some documents in the index:
PUT my_index/_doc/1
{
"title" : "CPU release",
"companies" : [
{ "company_id" : 1, "name" : "AMD" },
{ "company_id" : 2, "name" : "Intel" }
]
}
PUT my_index/_doc/2
{
"title" : "GPU release 2018-01-10",
"companies" : [
{ "company_id" : 1, "name" : "AMD" },
{ "company_id" : 3, "name" : "Nvidia" }
]
}
PUT my_index/_doc/3
{
"title" : "GPU release 2018-03-01",
"companies" : [
{ "company_id" : 3, "name" : "Nvidia" }
]
}
PUT my_index/_doc/4
{
"title" : "Chipset release",
"companies" : [
{ "company_id" : 2, "name" : "Intel" }
]
}
Now i want to execute queries like this:
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{ "match": { "title": "GPU" } },
{ "nested": {
"path": "companies",
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{ "match": { "companies.name": "AMD" } }
]
}
},
"inner_hits" : {}
}
}
]
}
}
}
As result I want to get the matching companies with the number of matching documents. So the above query should give me:
[
{ "company_id" : 1, "name" : "AMD", "matched_documents:": 1 }
]
The following query:
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{ "match": { "title": "GPU" } }
{ "nested": {
"path": "companies",
"query": { "match_all": {} },
"inner_hits" : {}
}
}
]
}
}
}
should give me all companies assigned to a document whichs title contains "GPU" with the number of matching documents:
[
{ "company_id" : 1, "name" : "AMD", "matched_documents:": 1 },
{ "company_id" : 3, "name" : "Nvidia", "matched_documents:": 2 }
]
Is there any possibility with good performance to achieve this result? I'm explicitly not interested in the matching documents, only in the number of matched documents and the nested objects.
Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

What you need to do in terms of Elasticsearch is:
filter "parent" documents on desired criteria (like having GPU in title, or also mentioning Nvidia in the companies list);
group "nested" documents by a certain criteria, a bucket (e.g. company_id);
count how many "nested" documents there are per each bucket.
Each of the nested objects in the array are indexed as a separate hidden document, which complicates life a bit. Let's see how to aggregate on them.
So how to aggregate and count the nested documents?
You can achieve this with a combination of a nested, terms and top_hits aggregation:
POST my_index/doc/_search
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{
"match": {
"title": "GPU"
}
},
{
"nested": {
"path": "companies",
"query": {
"match_all": {}
}
}
}
]
}
},
"aggs": {
"Extract nested": {
"nested": {
"path": "companies"
},
"aggs": {
"By company id": {
"terms": {
"field": "companies.company_id"
},
"aggs": {
"Examples of such company_id": {
"top_hits": {
"size": 1
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
This will give the following output:
{
...
"hits": { ... },
"aggregations": {
"Extract nested": {
"doc_count": 4, <== How many "nested" documents there were?
"By company id": {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound": 0,
"sum_other_doc_count": 0,
"buckets": [
{
"key": 3, <== this bucket's key: "company_id": 3
"doc_count": 2, <== how many "nested" documents there were with such company_id?
"Examples of such company_id": {
"hits": {
"total": 2,
"max_score": 1.5897496,
"hits": [ <== an example, "top hit" for such company_id
{
"_nested": {
"field": "companies",
"offset": 1
},
"_score": 1.5897496,
"_source": {
"company_id": 3,
"name": "Nvidia"
}
}
]
}
}
},
{
"key": 1,
"doc_count": 1,
"Examples of such company_id": {
"hits": {
"total": 1,
"max_score": 1.5897496,
"hits": [
{
"_nested": {
"field": "companies",
"offset": 0
},
"_score": 1.5897496,
"_source": {
"company_id": 1,
"name": "AMD"
}
}
]
}
}
}
]
}
}
}
}
Notice that for Nvidia we have "doc_count": 2.
But what if we want to count the number of "parent" objects who's got Nvidia vs Intel?
What if we want to count parent objects based on a nested bucket?
It can be achieved with reverse_nested aggregation.
We need to change our query just a little bit:
POST my_index/doc/_search
{
"query": { ... },
"aggs": {
"Extract nested": {
"nested": {
"path": "companies"
},
"aggs": {
"By company id": {
"terms": {
"field": "companies.company_id"
},
"aggs": {
"Examples of such company_id": {
"top_hits": {
"size": 1
}
},
"original doc count": { <== we ask ES to count how many there are parent docs
"reverse_nested": {}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
The result will look like this:
{
...
"hits": { ... },
"aggregations": {
"Extract nested": {
"doc_count": 3,
"By company id": {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound": 0,
"sum_other_doc_count": 0,
"buckets": [
{
"key": 3,
"doc_count": 2,
"original doc count": {
"doc_count": 2 <== how many "parent" documents have such company_id
},
"Examples of such company_id": {
"hits": {
"total": 2,
"max_score": 1.5897496,
"hits": [
{
"_nested": {
"field": "companies",
"offset": 1
},
"_score": 1.5897496,
"_source": {
"company_id": 3,
"name": "Nvidia"
}
}
]
}
}
},
{
"key": 1,
"doc_count": 1,
"original doc count": {
"doc_count": 1
},
"Examples of such company_id": {
"hits": {
"total": 1,
"max_score": 1.5897496,
"hits": [
{
"_nested": {
"field": "companies",
"offset": 0
},
"_score": 1.5897496,
"_source": {
"company_id": 1,
"name": "AMD"
}
}
]
}
}
}
]
}
}
}
}
How can I spot the difference?
To make the difference evident, let's change the data a bit and add another Nvidia item in the document list:
PUT my_index/doc/2
{
"title" : "GPU release 2018-01-10",
"companies" : [
{ "company_id" : 1, "name" : "AMD" },
{ "company_id" : 3, "name" : "Nvidia" },
{ "company_id" : 3, "name" : "Nvidia" }
]
}
The last query (the one with reverse_nested) will give us the following:
"By company id": {
"doc_count_error_upper_bound": 0,
"sum_other_doc_count": 0,
"buckets": [
{
"key": 3,
"doc_count": 3, <== 3 "nested" documents with Nvidia
"original doc count": {
"doc_count": 2 <== but only 2 "parent" documents
},
"Examples of such company_id": {
"hits": {
"total": 3,
"max_score": 1.5897496,
"hits": [
{
"_nested": {
"field": "companies",
"offset": 2
},
"_score": 1.5897496,
"_source": {
"company_id": 3,
"name": "Nvidia"
}
}
]
}
}
},
As you can see, this is a subtle difference that is hard to grasp, but it changes the semantics completely.
What's about performance?
While for most of the cases the performance of nested query and aggregations should be enough, of course it comes with a certain cost. It is therefore recommended to avoid using nested or parent-child types when tuning for search speed.
In Elasticsearch the best performance is often achieved through denormalization, although there is no single recipe and you should select the data model depending on your needs.
Hope this clarifies this nested thing for you a bit!