Query DSL changes

Queries and filters have been merged — all filter clauses are now query clauses. Instead, query clauses can now be used in query context or in filter context:

The execution option of the terms filter is now deprecated and is ignored if provided. Similarly, the terms query no longer supports the minimum_should_match parameter.

The or and and filters previously had a different execution pattern to the bool filter. It used to be important to use and/or with certain filter clauses, and bool with others.

This distinction has been removed: the bool query is now smart enough to handle both cases optimally. As a result of this change, the or and and filters are now sugar syntax which are executed internally as a bool query. These filters may be removed in the future.

The query filter is deprecated as is it no longer needed — all queries can be used in query or filter context.

The filtered query is deprecated in favour of the bool query. Instead of the following:

GET _search
{
  "query": {
    "filtered": {
      "query": {
        "match": {
          "text": "quick brown fox"
        }
      },
      "filter": {
        "term": {
          "status": "published"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

move the query and filter to the must and filter parameters in the bool query:

GET _search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": {
        "match": {
          "text": "quick brown fox"
        }
      },
      "filter": {
        "term": {
          "status": "published"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

It used to be possible to control which filters were cached with the _cache option and to provide a custom _cache_key. These options are deprecated and, if present, will be ignored.

Query clauses used in filter context are now auto-cached when it makes sense to do so. The algorithm takes into account the frequency of use, the cost of query execution, and the cost of building the filter.

The terms filter lookup mechanism no longer caches the values of the document containing the terms. It relies on the filesystem cache instead. If the lookup index is not too large, it is recommended to replicate it to all nodes by setting index.auto_expand_replicas: 0-all in order to remove the network overhead as well.

Previously, term queries on numeric fields were deliberately prevented from using the usual Lucene scoring logic and this behaviour was undocumented and, to some, unexpected.

Single term queries on numeric fields now score in the same way as string fields, using IDF and norms (if enabled).

To query numeric fields without scoring, the query clause should be used in filter context, e.g. in the filter parameter of the bool query, or wrapped in a constant_score query:

GET _search
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        {
          "match": { 
            "numeric_tag": 5
          }
        }
      ],
      "filter": [
        {
          "match": { 
            "count": 5
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Fuzzy matching used to calculate the score for each fuzzy alternative, meaning that rare misspellings would have a higher score than the more common correct spellings. Now, fuzzy matching blends the scores of all the fuzzy alternatives to use the IDF of the most frequently occurring alternative.

Fuzziness can no longer be specified using a percentage, but should instead use the number of allowed edits:

The fuzzy_like_this and fuzzy_like_this_field queries used a very expensive approach to fuzzy matching and have been removed.

The More Like This (mlt) API and the more_like_this_field (mlt_field) query have been removed in favor of the more_like_this query.

The parameter percent_terms_to_match has been removed in favor of minimum_should_match.

The limit filter is deprecated and becomes a no-op. You can achieve similar behaviour using the terminate_after parameter.

Java plugins that register custom queries can do so by using the IndicesQueriesModule#addQuery(Class<? extends QueryParser>) method. Other ways to register custom queries are not supported anymore.