[[query-dsl-span-containing-query]]
=== Span containing query
++++
<titleabbrev>Span containing</titleabbrev>
++++

Returns matches which enclose another span query. The span containing
query maps to Lucene `SpanContainingQuery`. Here is an example:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
GET /_search
{
    "query": {
        "span_containing" : {
            "little" : {
                "span_term" : { "field1" : "foo" }
            },
            "big" : {
                "span_near" : { 
                    "clauses" : [
                        { "span_term" : { "field1" : "bar" } },
                        { "span_term" : { "field1" : "baz" } }
                    ],
                    "slop" : 5,
                    "in_order" : true
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------

The `big` and `little` clauses can be any span type query. Matching
spans from `big` that contain matches from `little` are returned.