[[search-uri-request]]
== URI Search

A search request can be executed purely using a URI by providing request
parameters. Not all search options are exposed when executing a search
using this mode, but it can be handy for quick "curl tests". Here is an
example:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
$ curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/twitter/tweet/_search?q=user:kimchy'
--------------------------------------------------

And here is a sample response:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
    "_shards":{
        "total" : 5,
        "successful" : 5,
        "failed" : 0
    },
    "hits":{
        "total" : 1,
        "hits" : [
            {
                "_index" : "twitter",
                "_type" : "tweet",
                "_id" : "1",
                "_source" : {
                    "user" : "kimchy",
                    "postDate" : "2009-11-15T14:12:12",
                    "message" : "trying out Elasticsearch"
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------

[float]
=== Parameters

The parameters allowed in the URI are:

[cols="<,<",options="header",]
|=======================================================================
|Name |Description
|`q` |The query string (maps to the `query_string` query, see
<<query-dsl-query-string-query,_Query String
Query_>> for more details).

|`df` |The default field to use when no field prefix is defined within the
query.

|`analyzer` |The analyzer name to be used when analyzing the query string.

|`lowercase_expanded_terms` |Should terms be automatically lowercased or
not. Defaults to `true`.

|`analyze_wildcard` |Should wildcard and prefix queries be analyzed or
not. Defaults to `false`.

|`default_operator` |The default operator to be used, can be `AND` or
`OR`. Defaults to `OR`.

|`lenient` |If set to true will cause format based failures (like
providing text to a numeric field) to be ignored. Defaults to false.

|`explain` |For each hit, contain an explanation of how scoring of the
hits was computed.

|`_source`|Set to `false` to disable retrieval of the `_source` field. You can also retrieve
part of the document by using `_source_include` & `_source_exclude` (see the <<search-request-source-filtering, request body>>
documentation for more details)

|`fields` |The selective stored fields of the document to return for each hit, 
comma delimited. Not specifying any value will cause no fields to return.

|`sort` |Sorting to perform. Can either be in the form of `fieldName`, or
`fieldName:asc`/`fieldName:desc`. The fieldName can either be an actual
field within the document, or the special `_score` name to indicate
sorting based on scores. There can be several `sort` parameters (order
is important).

|`track_scores` |When sorting, set to `true` in order to still track
scores and return them as part of each hit.

|`timeout` |A search timeout, bounding the search request to be executed
within the specified time value and bail with the hits accumulated up to
that point when expired. Defaults to no timeout.

|`terminate_after` |experimental[The API for this feature may change in the future]
The maximum number of documents to collect for
each shard, upon reaching which the query execution will terminate early.
If set, the response will have a boolean field `terminated_early` to
indicate whether the query execution has actually terminated_early.
Defaults to no terminate_after.

|`from` |The starting from index of the hits to return. Defaults to `0`.

|`size` |The number of hits to return. Defaults to `10`.

|`search_type` |The type of the search operation to perform. Can be
`dfs_query_then_fetch`, `query_then_fetch`, `scan` or `count`
deprecated[2.0,Replaced by `size: 0`]. Defaults to `query_then_fetch`. See
<<search-request-search-type,_Search Type_>> for
more details on the different types of search that can be performed.
|=======================================================================