elasticsearch/docs/reference/sql/functions/search.asciidoc

[role="xpack"]
[testenv="basic"]
[[sql-functions-search]]
=== Full-Text Search Functions

beta[]

Search functions should be used when performing full-text search, namely
when the `MATCH` or `QUERY` predicates are being used.
Outside a, so-called, search context, these functions will return default values
such as `0` or `NULL`.

[[sql-functions-search-score]]
==== `SCORE`

.Synopsis:
[source, sql]
--------------------------------------------------
SCORE()
--------------------------------------------------

*Input*: _none_

*Output*: `double` numeric value

.Description:

Returns the {defguide}/relevance-intro.html[relevance] of a given input to the executed query. 
The higher score, the more relevant the data.

NOTE: When doing multiple text queries in the `WHERE` clause then, their scores will be
combined using the same rules as {es}'s
<<query-dsl-bool-query,bool query>>. 

Typically `SCORE` is used for ordering the results of a query based on their relevance:

["source","sql",subs="attributes,callouts,macros"]
----
include-tagged::{sql-specs}/docs.csv-spec[orderByScore]
----

However, it is perfectly fine to return the score without sorting by it:

["source","sql",subs="attributes,callouts,macros"]
----
include-tagged::{sql-specs}/docs.csv-spec[scoreWithMatch]
----