Dynamic templatesedit
Dynamic templates allow you to define custom mappings that can be applied to dynamically added fields based on:
-
the datatype detected by Elasticsearch, with
match_mapping_type. -
the name of the field, with
matchandunmatchormatch_pattern. -
the full dotted path to the field, with
path_matchandpath_unmatch.
The original field name {name} and the detected datatype
{dynamic_type} template variables can be used in
the mapping specification as placeholders.
Dynamic field mappings are only added when a field contains a
concrete value — not null or an empty array. This means that if the
null_value option is used in a dynamic_template, it will only be applied
after the first document with a concrete value for the field has been
indexed.
Dynamic templates are specified as an array of named objects:
"dynamic_templates": [
{
"my_template_name": {
... match conditions ...
"mapping": { ... }
}
},
...
]
|
The template name can be any string value. |
|
|
The match conditions can include any of : |
|
|
The mapping that the matched field should use. |
If a provided mapping contains an invalid mapping snippet, a validation error is returned. Validation occurs when applying the dynamic template at index time, and, in most cases, when the dynamic template is updated. Providing an invalid mapping snippet may cause the update or validation of a dynamic template to fail under certain conditions:
-
If no
match_mapping_typehas been specified but the template is valid for at least one predefined mapping type, the mapping snippet is considered valid. However, a validation error is returned at index time if a field matching the template is indexed as a different type. For example, configuring a dynamic template with nomatch_mapping_typeis considered valid as string type, but if a field matching the dynamic template is indexed as a long, a validation error is returned at index time. -
If the
{{name}}placeholder is used in the mapping snippet, validation is skipped when updating the dynamic template. This is because the field name is unknown at that time. Instead, validation occurs when the template is applied at index time.
Templates are processed in order — the first matching template wins. When putting new dynamic templates through the put mapping API, all existing templates are overwritten. This allows for dynamic templates to be reordered or deleted after they were initially added.
match_mapping_typeedit
The match_mapping_type is the datatype detected by the JSON parser. Since
JSON doesn’t distinguish a long from an integer or a double from
a float, it will always choose the wider datatype, i.e. long for integers
and double for floating-point numbers.
The following datatypes may be automatically detected:
-
booleanwhentrueorfalseare encountered. -
datewhen date detection is enabled and a string matching any of the configured date formats is found. -
doublefor numbers with a decimal part. -
longfor numbers without a decimal part. -
objectfor objects, also called hashes. -
stringfor character strings.
* may also be used in order to match all datatypes.
For example, if we wanted to map all integer fields as integer instead of
long, and all string fields as both text and keyword, we
could use the following template:
PUT my_index
{
"mappings": {
"dynamic_templates": [
{
"integers": {
"match_mapping_type": "long",
"mapping": {
"type": "integer"
}
}
},
{
"strings": {
"match_mapping_type": "string",
"mapping": {
"type": "text",
"fields": {
"raw": {
"type": "keyword",
"ignore_above": 256
}
}
}
}
}
]
}
}
PUT my_index/_doc/1
{
"my_integer": 5,
"my_string": "Some string"
}
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The |
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The |
match and unmatchedit
The match parameter uses a pattern to match on the field name, while
unmatch uses a pattern to exclude fields matched by match.
The following example matches all string fields whose name starts with
long_ (except for those which end with _text) and maps them as long
fields:
match_patternedit
The match_pattern parameter adjusts the behavior of the match parameter
such that it supports full Java regular expression matching on the field name
instead of simple wildcards, for instance:
"match_pattern": "regex", "match": "^profit_\d+$"
path_match and path_unmatchedit
The path_match and path_unmatch parameters work in the same way as match
and unmatch, but operate on the full dotted path to the field, not just the
final name, e.g. some_object.*.some_field.
This example copies the values of any fields in the name object to the
top-level full_name field, except for the middle field:
PUT my_index
{
"mappings": {
"dynamic_templates": [
{
"full_name": {
"path_match": "name.*",
"path_unmatch": "*.middle",
"mapping": {
"type": "text",
"copy_to": "full_name"
}
}
}
]
}
}
PUT my_index/_doc/1
{
"name": {
"first": "John",
"middle": "Winston",
"last": "Lennon"
}
}
Note that the path_match and path_unmatch parameters match on object paths
in addition to leaf fields. As an example, indexing the following document will
result in an error because the path_match setting also matches the object
field name.title, which can’t be mapped as text:
PUT my_index/_doc/2
{
"name": {
"first": "Paul",
"last": "McCartney",
"title": {
"value": "Sir",
"category": "order of chivalry"
}
}
}
{name} and {dynamic_type}edit
The {name} and {dynamic_type} placeholders are replaced in the mapping
with the field name and detected dynamic type. The following example sets all
string fields to use an analyzer with the same name as the
field, and disables doc_values for all non-string fields:
PUT my_index
{
"mappings": {
"dynamic_templates": [
{
"named_analyzers": {
"match_mapping_type": "string",
"match": "*",
"mapping": {
"type": "text",
"analyzer": "{name}"
}
}
},
{
"no_doc_values": {
"match_mapping_type":"*",
"mapping": {
"type": "{dynamic_type}",
"doc_values": false
}
}
}
]
}
}
PUT my_index/_doc/1
{
"english": "Some English text",
"count": 5
}
Template examplesedit
Here are some examples of potentially useful dynamic templates:
Structured searchedit
By default Elasticsearch will map string fields as a text field with a sub
keyword field. However if you are only indexing structured content and not
interested in full text search, you can make Elasticsearch map your fields
only as `keyword`s. Note that this means that in order to search those fields,
you will have to search on the exact same value that was indexed.
PUT my_index
{
"mappings": {
"dynamic_templates": [
{
"strings_as_keywords": {
"match_mapping_type": "string",
"mapping": {
"type": "keyword"
}
}
}
]
}
}
text-only mappings for stringsedit
On the contrary to the previous example, if the only thing that you care about on your string fields is full-text search, and if you don’t plan on running aggregations, sorting or exact search on your string fields, you could tell Elasticsearch to map it only as a text field (which was the default behaviour before 5.0):
PUT my_index
{
"mappings": {
"dynamic_templates": [
{
"strings_as_text": {
"match_mapping_type": "string",
"mapping": {
"type": "text"
}
}
}
]
}
}
Disabled normsedit
Norms are index-time scoring factors. If you do not care about scoring, which would be the case for instance if you never sort documents by score, you could disable the storage of these scoring factors in the index and save some space.
PUT my_index
{
"mappings": {
"dynamic_templates": [
{
"strings_as_keywords": {
"match_mapping_type": "string",
"mapping": {
"type": "text",
"norms": false,
"fields": {
"keyword": {
"type": "keyword",
"ignore_above": 256
}
}
}
}
}
]
}
}
The sub keyword field appears in this template to be consistent with the
default rules of dynamic mappings. Of course if you do not need them because
you don’t need to perform exact search or aggregate on this field, you could
remove it as described in the previous section.
Time-seriesedit
When doing time series analysis with Elasticsearch, it is common to have many numeric fields that you will often aggregate on but never filter on. In such a case, you could disable indexing on those fields to save disk space and also maybe gain some indexing speed: