elasticsearch/docs/reference/scripting/fields.asciidoc

[[modules-scripting-fields]]
== Accessing document fields and special variables

Depending on where a script is used, it will have access to certain special
variables and document fields.

[discrete]
== Update scripts

A script used in the <<docs-update,update>>,
<<docs-update-by-query,update-by-query>>, or <<docs-reindex,reindex>>
API will have access to the `ctx` variable which exposes:

[horizontal]
`ctx._source`::     Access to the document <<mapping-source-field,`_source` field>>.
`ctx.op`::          The operation that should be applied to the document: `index` or `delete`.
`ctx._index` etc::  Access to <<mapping-fields,document metadata fields>>, some of which may be read-only.

These scripts do not have access to the `doc` variable and have to use `ctx` to access the documents they operate on.

[discrete]
== Search and aggregation scripts

With the exception of <<script-fields,script fields>> which are
executed once per search hit, scripts used in search and aggregations will be
executed once for every document which might match a query or an aggregation.
Depending on how many documents you have, this could mean millions or billions
of executions: these scripts need to be fast!

Field values can be accessed from a script using
<<modules-scripting-doc-vals,doc-values>>,
<<modules-scripting-source, the `_source` field>>, or
<<modules-scripting-stored, stored fields>>,
each of which is explained below.

[[scripting-score]]
[discrete]
=== Accessing the score of a document within a script

Scripts used in the <<query-dsl-function-score-query,`function_score` query>>,
in <<sort-search-results,script-based sorting>>, or in
<<search-aggregations,aggregations>> have access to the `_score` variable which
represents the current relevance score of a document.

Here's an example of using a script in a
<<query-dsl-function-score-query,`function_score` query>> to alter the
relevance `_score` of each document:

[source,console]
-------------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1?refresh
{
  "text": "quick brown fox",
  "popularity": 1
}

PUT my-index-000001/_doc/2?refresh
{
  "text": "quick fox",
  "popularity": 5
}

GET my-index-000001/_search
{
  "query": {
    "function_score": {
      "query": {
        "match": {
          "text": "quick brown fox"
        }
      },
      "script_score": {
        "script": {
          "lang": "expression",
          "source": "_score * doc['popularity']"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
-------------------------------------


[discrete]
[[modules-scripting-doc-vals]]
=== Doc values

By far the fastest most efficient way to access a field value from a
script is to use the `doc['field_name']` syntax, which retrieves the field
value from <<doc-values,doc values>>. Doc values are a columnar field value
store, enabled by default on all fields except for <<text,analyzed `text` fields>>.

[source,console]
-------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1?refresh
{
  "cost_price": 100
}

GET my-index-000001/_search
{
  "script_fields": {
    "sales_price": {
      "script": {
        "lang":   "expression",
        "source": "doc['cost_price'] * markup",
        "params": {
          "markup": 0.2
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
-------------------------------

Doc-values can only return "simple" field values like numbers, dates, geo-
points, terms, etc, or arrays of these values if the field is multi-valued.
It cannot return JSON objects.

[NOTE]
.Missing fields
===================================================

The `doc['field']` will throw an error if `field` is missing from the mappings.
In `painless`, a check can first be done with `doc.containsKey('field')` to guard
accessing the `doc` map. Unfortunately, there is no way to check for the
existence of the field in mappings in an `expression` script.

===================================================

[NOTE]
.Doc values and `text` fields
===================================================

The `doc['field']` syntax can also be used for <<text,analyzed `text` fields>>
if <<fielddata-mapping-param,`fielddata`>> is enabled, but *BEWARE*: enabling fielddata on a
`text` field requires loading all of the terms into the JVM heap, which can be
very expensive both in terms of memory and CPU. It seldom makes sense to
access `text` fields from scripts.

===================================================

[discrete]
[[modules-scripting-source]]
=== The document `_source`

The document <<mapping-source-field,`_source`>> can be accessed using the
`_source.field_name` syntax. The `_source` is loaded as a map-of-maps, so
properties within object fields can be accessed as, for example,
`_source.name.first`.

[IMPORTANT]
.Prefer doc-values to _source
=========================================================

Accessing the `_source` field is much slower than using doc-values. The
_source field is optimised for returning several fields per result, while doc
values are optimised for accessing the value of a specific field in many
documents.

It makes sense to use `_source` when generating a
<<script-fields,script field>> for the top ten hits from a
search result but, for other search and aggregation use cases, always prefer
using doc values.
=========================================================


For instance:

[source,console]
-------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001
{
  "mappings": {
    "properties": {
      "first_name": {
        "type": "text"
      },
      "last_name": {
        "type": "text"
      }
    }
  }
}

PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1?refresh
{
  "first_name": "Barry",
  "last_name": "White"
}

GET my-index-000001/_search
{
  "script_fields": {
    "full_name": {
      "script": {
        "lang": "painless",
        "source": "params._source.first_name + ' ' + params._source.last_name"
      }
    }
  }
}
-------------------------------

[discrete]
[[modules-scripting-stored]]
=== Stored fields

_Stored fields_ -- fields explicitly marked as
<<mapping-store,`"store": true`>> in the mapping -- can be accessed using the
`_fields['field_name'].value` or `_fields['field_name']` syntax:

[source,console]
-------------------------------
PUT my-index-000001
{
  "mappings": {
    "properties": {
      "full_name": {
        "type": "text",
        "store": true
      },
      "title": {
        "type": "text",
        "store": true
      }
    }
  }
}

PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1?refresh
{
  "full_name": "Alice Ball",
  "title": "Professor"
}

GET my-index-000001/_search
{
  "script_fields": {
    "name_with_title": {
      "script": {
        "lang": "painless",
        "source": "params._fields['title'].value + ' ' + params._fields['full_name'].value"
      }
    }
  }
}
-------------------------------

[TIP]
.Stored vs `_source`
=======================================================

The `_source` field is just a special stored field, so the performance is
similar to that of other stored fields. The `_source` provides access to the
original document body that was indexed (including the ability to distinguish
`null` values from empty fields, single-value arrays from plain scalars, etc).

The only time it really makes sense to use stored fields instead of the
`_source` field is when the `_source` is very large and it is less costly to
access a few small stored fields instead of the entire `_source`.

=======================================================