WARNING: The 2.x versions of Elasticsearch have passed their EOL dates. If you are running a 2.x version, we strongly advise you to upgrade.

This documentation is no longer maintained and may be removed. For the latest information, see the current Elasticsearch documentation.

› › ›

Empty Search

edit

IMPORTANT: This documentation is no longer updated. Refer to Elastic's version policy and the latest documentation.

Empty Search

edit

Let’s start with the simplest form of the search API, the empty search, which returns all documents in all indices:

GET /_search
{}

This is an empty request body.

Just as with a query-string search, you can search on one, many, or _all indices, and one, many, or all types:

GET /index_2014*/type1,type2/_search
{}

And you can use the from and size parameters for pagination:

GET /_search
{
  "from": 30,
  "size": 10
}

A GET Request with a Body?

The HTTP libraries of certain languages (notably JavaScript) don’t allow GET requests to have a request body. In fact, some users are suprised that GET requests are ever allowed to have a body.

The truth is that RFC 7231—the RFC that deals with HTTP semantics and content—does not define what should happen to a GET request with a body! As a result, some HTTP servers allow it, and some—especially caching proxies—don’t.

The authors of Elasticsearch prefer using GET for a search request because they feel that it describes the action—retrieving information—better than the POST verb. However, because GET with a request body is not universally supported, the search API also accepts POST requests:

POST /_search
{
  "from": 30,
  "size": 10
}

The same rule applies to any other GET API that requires a request body.

We present aggregations in depth in Aggregations, but for now, we’re going to focus just on the query.

Instead of the cryptic query-string approach, a request body search allows us to write queries by using the query domain-specific language, or query DSL.

« Full-Body Search Query DSL »