10 Full-text search
This chapter covers
- Overview of full text queries
- Working through match queries
- Looking at match phrase, multi-match, and other queries
- Looking at query strings and simple query string queries
In the last chapter, we looked at term-level searching, which is the mechanism that we use to search structured data. Although a structured data search is important, the power of modern search engines vests in an efficient and effective way to run when we search unstructured data. Elasticsearch is one such modern search engine that stands as a front runner in searching unstructured data with relevance.
Elasticsearch provides the capability to search unstructured data in the form of full text search queries. A full text search is all about relevancy: fetching the documents that are relevant to the user's search. For example, when searching for the word Java in an online bookstore, one shouldn't expect to receive details about the Indonesian island of Java or the wet pressed coffee grown on this island.