[[search-suggesters-completion]]
=== Completion Suggester

NOTE: In order to understand the format of suggestions, please
read the <<search-suggesters>> page first.

The `completion` suggester provides auto-complete/search-as-you-type
functionality. This is a navigational feature to guide users to
relevant results as they are typing, improving search precision.
It is not meant for spell correction or did-you-mean functionality
like the `term` or `phrase` suggesters.

Ideally, auto-complete functionality should be as fast as a user
types to provide instant feedback relevant to what a user has already
typed in. Hence, `completion` suggester is optimized for speed.
The suggester uses data structures that enable fast lookups,
but are costly to build and are stored in-memory.

[[completion-suggester-mapping]]
==== Mapping

To use this feature, specify a special mapping for this field,
which indexes the field values for fast completions.

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT music
{
    "mappings": {
        "song" : {
            "properties" : {
                "suggest" : {
                    "type" : "completion"
                },
                "title" : {
                    "type": "keyword"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TESTSETUP

Mapping supports the following parameters:

`analyzer`::
    The index analyzer to use, defaults to `simple`.
    In case you are wondering why we did not opt for the `standard`
    analyzer: We try to have easy to understand behaviour here, and if you
    index the field content `At the Drive-in`, you will not get any
    suggestions for `a`, nor for `d` (the first non stopword).

`search_analyzer`::
    The search analyzer to use, defaults to value of `analyzer`.

`preserve_separators`::
    Preserves the separators, defaults to `true`.
    If disabled, you could find a field starting with `Foo Fighters`, if you
    suggest for `foof`.

`preserve_position_increments`::
    Enables position increments, defaults to `true`.
    If disabled and using stopwords analyzer, you could get a
    field starting with `The Beatles`, if you suggest for `b`. *Note*: You
    could also achieve this by indexing two inputs, `Beatles` and
    `The Beatles`, no need to change a simple analyzer, if you are able to
    enrich your data.

`max_input_length`::
    Limits the length of a single input, defaults to `50` UTF-16 code points.
    This limit is only used at index time to reduce the total number of
    characters per input string in order to prevent massive inputs from
    bloating the underlying datastructure. Most usecases won't be influenced
    by the default value since prefix completions seldom grow beyond prefixes longer
    than a handful of characters.

[[indexing]]
==== Indexing

You index suggestions like any other field. A suggestion is made of an
`input` and an optional `weight` attribute. An `input` is the expected
text to be matched by a suggestion query and the `weight` determines how
the suggestions will be scored. Indexing a suggestion is as follows:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT music/song/1?refresh
{
    "suggest" : {
        "input": [ "Nevermind", "Nirvana" ],
        "weight" : 34
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TEST

The following parameters are supported:

`input`::
    The input to store, this can be an array of strings or just
    a string. This field is mandatory.

`weight`::
    A positive integer or a string containing a positive integer,
    which defines a weight and allows you to rank your suggestions.
    This field is optional.

You can index multiple suggestions for a document as follows:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT music/song/1?refresh
{
    "suggest" : [
        {
            "input": "Nevermind",
            "weight" : 10
        },
        {
            "input": "Nirvana",
            "weight" : 3
        }
    ]
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TEST[continued]

You can use the following shorthand form. Note that you can not specify
a weight with suggestion(s).

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT music/song/1?refresh
{
  "suggest" : [ "Nevermind", "Nirvana" ]
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TEST[continued]

[[querying]]
==== Querying

Suggesting works as usual, except that you have to specify the suggest
type as `completion`. Suggestions are near real-time, which means
new suggestions can be made visible by <<indices-refresh,refresh>> and
documents once deleted are never shown. This request:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
POST music/_suggest?pretty
{
    "song-suggest" : {
        "prefix" : "nir",
        "completion" : {
            "field" : "suggest"
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TEST[continued]

returns this response:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
  "_shards" : {
    "total" : 5,
    "successful" : 5,
    "failed" : 0
  },
  "song-suggest" : [ {
    "text" : "nir",
    "offset" : 0,
    "length" : 3,
    "options" : [ {
      "text" : "Nirvana",
      "_index": "music",
      "_type": "song",
      "_id": "1",
      "_score": 1.0,
      "_source": {
        "suggest": ["Nevermind", "Nirvana"]
      }
    } ]
  } ]
}
--------------------------------------------------
// TESTRESPONSE

The configured weight for a suggestion is returned as `_score`.
The `text` field uses the `input` of your indexed suggestion.
Suggestions are document oriented, the document source is
returned in `_source`. <<search-request-source-filtering, source filtering>>
parameters are supported for filtering the document source.

The basic completion suggester query supports the following parameters:

`field`:: The name of the field on which to run the query (required).
`size`::  The number of suggestions to return (defaults to `5`).
`payload`::  The name of the field or field name array to be returned
             as payload (defaults to no fields).

NOTE: The completion suggester considers all documents in the index.
See <<suggester-context>> for an explanation of how to query a subset of
documents instead.

NOTE: Specifying `payload` fields will incur additional search performance
hit. The `payload` fields are retrieved eagerly (single pass) for top
suggestions at the shard level using field data or from doc values.

[[fuzzy]]
==== Fuzzy queries

The completion suggester also supports fuzzy queries - this means,
you can have a typo in your search and still get results back.

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
POST music/_suggest?pretty
{
    "song-suggest" : {
        "prefix" : "nor",
        "completion" : {
            "field" : "suggest",
            "fuzzy" : {
                "fuzziness" : 2
            }
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE

Suggestions that share the longest prefix to the query `prefix` will
be scored higher.

The fuzzy query can take specific fuzzy parameters.
The following parameters are supported:

[horizontal]
`fuzziness`::
    The fuzziness factor, defaults to `AUTO`.
    See  <<fuzziness>> for allowed settings.

`transpositions`::
    if set to `true`, transpositions are counted
    as one change instead of two, defaults to `true`

`min_length`::
    Minimum length of the input before fuzzy
    suggestions are returned, defaults `3`

`prefix_length`::
    Minimum length of the input, which is not
    checked for fuzzy alternatives, defaults to `1`

`unicode_aware`::
    If `true`, all measurements (like fuzzy edit
    distance, transpositions, and lengths) are
    measured in Unicode code points instead of
    in bytes.  This is slightly slower than raw
    bytes, so it is set to `false` by default.

NOTE: If you want to stick with the default values, but
      still use fuzzy, you can either use `fuzzy: {}`
      or `fuzzy: true`.

[[regex]]
==== Regex queries

The completion suggester also supports regex queries meaning
you can express a prefix as a regular expression

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
POST music/_suggest?pretty
{
    "song-suggest" : {
        "regex" : "n[ever|i]r",
        "completion" : {
            "field" : "suggest"
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE

The regex query can take specific regex parameters.
The following parameters are supported:

[horizontal]
`flags`::
    Possible flags are `ALL` (default), `ANYSTRING`, `COMPLEMENT`,
    `EMPTY`, `INTERSECTION`, `INTERVAL`, or `NONE`. See <<query-dsl-regexp-query, regexp-syntax>>
    for their meaning

`max_determinized_states`::
    Regular expressions are dangerous because it's easy to accidentally
    create an innocuous looking one that requires an exponential number of
    internal determinized automaton states (and corresponding RAM and CPU)
    for Lucene to execute.  Lucene prevents these using the
    `max_determinized_states` setting (defaults to 10000).  You can raise
    this limit to allow more complex regular expressions to execute.
