[[query-dsl-span-not-query]]
=== Span not query
++++
<titleabbrev>Span not</titleabbrev>
++++

Removes matches which overlap with another span query or which are
within x tokens before (controlled by the parameter `pre`) or y tokens
after (controlled by the parameter `post`) another SpanQuery. The span not
query maps to Lucene `SpanNotQuery`. Here is an example:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
GET /_search
{
    "query": {
        "span_not" : {
            "include" : {
                "span_term" : { "field1" : "hoya" }
            },
            "exclude" : {
                "span_near" : { 
                    "clauses" : [
                        { "span_term" : { "field1" : "la" } },
                        { "span_term" : { "field1" : "hoya" } }
                    ],
                    "slop" : 0,
                    "in_order" : true
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------

The `include` and `exclude` clauses can be any span type query. The
`include` clause is the span query whose matches are filtered, and the
`exclude` clause is the span query whose matches must not overlap those
returned.

In the above example all documents with the term hoya are filtered except the ones that have 'la' preceding them.

Other top level options:

[horizontal]
`pre`::     If set the amount of tokens before the include span can't have overlap with the exclude span. Defaults to 0.
`post`::    If set the amount of tokens after the include span can't have overlap with the exclude span. Defaults to 0.
`dist`::    If set the amount of tokens from within the include span can't have overlap with the exclude span. Equivalent
            of setting both `pre` and `post`.