How to index both a string and its reverse? - filter

Question

I'm looking for a way to analyze the string "abc123" as ["abc123", "321cba"]. I've looked at the reverse token filter, but that only gets me ["321cba"]. Documentation on this filter is pretty sparse, only stating that
"A token filter of type reverse ... simply reverses each token."
(see http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/analysis-reverse-tokenfilter.html).
I've also tinkered with using the keyword_repeat filter, which gets me two instances. I don't know if that's useful, but for now all it does it reverse both instances.
How can I use the reverse token filter but keep the original token as well?
My analyzer:
{ "settings" : { "analysis" : {
"analyzer" : {
"phone" : {
"type" : "custom"
,"char_filter" : ["strip_non_numeric"]
,"tokenizer" : "keyword"
,"filter" : ["standard", "keyword_repeat", "reverse"]
}
}
,"char_filter" : {
"strip_non_numeric" : {
"type" : "pattern_replace"
,"pattern" : "[^0-9]"
,"replacement" : ""
}
}
}}}

Answer 1

Make and put a analyzer to reverse a string (say reverse_analyzer).
PUT index_name
{
"settings": {
"analysis": {
"analyzer": {
"reverse_analyzer": {
"type": "custom",
"char_filter": [
"strip_non_numeric"
],
"tokenizer": "keyword",
"filter": [
"standard",
"keyword_repeat",
"reverse"
]
}
},
"char_filter": {
"strip_non_numeric": {
"type": "pattern_replace",
"pattern": "[^0-9]",
"replacement": ""
}
}
}
}
}
then, for a field, (say phoneno), use mapping as, (create a type and append mapping for phone as)
PUT index_name/type_name/_mapping
{
"type_name": {
"properties": {
"phone_no": {
"type": "string",
"fields": {
"reverse": {
"type": "string",
"analyzer": "reverse_analyzer"
}
}
}
}
}
}
So, phone_no is like multifield, which will store a string and its reverse as,
if you index
phone_no: 911220
then in elasticsearch, there will be fields as,
phone_no: 911220 and phone_no.reverse : 022119, so you can search, filter reverse or not-reversed field.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I don't believe you can do this directly, as I am unaware of any way to get the reverse token filter to also output the original.
However, you could use the fields parameter to index both the original and the reversed at the same time with no additional coding. You would then search both fields.
So let's say your field was called phone_number:
"phone_number": {
"type": "string",
"fields": {
"reverse": { "type": "string", "index": "phone" }
}
}
In this case we're indexing using the default analyzer (assume standard) plus also indexing into reverse with your customer analyzer phone which reverses. You then issue your queries against both fields.
http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/_multi_fields.html

Answer 3

I'm not sure it's possible to do this using built-in set of token filters. I would recommend you to create your own plugin. There is ICU Analysis plugin supported by elastic search team, that you can use as example.

Answer 4

I wound up using the following two char_filter's in my analyzer. It's an ugly abuse of regex, but it seems to work. It is limited to the first 20 numeric characters, but in my use-case that is acceptable.
First it groups all numeric characters, then explicitly rebuilds the string with its own (numeric-only!) reverse. The space in the center of the replacement pattern then causes the tokenizer to split it into two tokens - the original and the reverse.
,"char_filter" : {
"strip_non_numeric" : {
"type" : "pattern_replace"
,"pattern" : "[^0-9]"
,"replacement" : ""
}
,"dupe_and_reverse" : {
"type" : "pattern_replace"
,"pattern" : "([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)([0-9]?)"
,"replacement" : "$1$2$3$4$5$6$7$8$9$10$11$12$13$14$15$16$17$18$19$20 $20$19$18$17$16$15$14$13$12$11$10$9$8$7$6$5$4$3$2$1"
}
}