[[painless-sort-context]]
=== Sort context

Use a Painless script to
{ref}/search-request-sort.html[sort] the documents in a query.

*Variables*

`params` (`Map`, read-only)::
        User-defined parameters passed in as part of the query.

`doc` (`Map`, read-only)::
        Contains the fields of the current document.  For single-valued fields,
        the value can be accessed via `doc['fieldname'].value`.  For multi-valued
        fields, this returns the first value; other values can be accessed
        via `doc['fieldname'].get(index)`

`_score` (`double` read-only)::
        The similarity score of the current document.

*Return*

`double`::
        The score for the specified document.

*API*

The standard <<painless-api-reference, Painless API>> is available.

*Example*

To run this example, first follow the steps in
<<painless-context-examples, context examples>>.

To sort results by the length of the `theatre` field, submit the following query:

[source,js]
----
GET /_search
{
    "query" : {
        "term" : { "sold" : "true" }
    },
    "sort" : {
        "_script" : {
            "type" : "number",
            "script" : {
                "lang": "painless",
                "source": "doc['theatre'].value.length() * params.factor",
                "params" : {
                    "factor" : 1.1
                }
            },
            "order" : "asc"
        }
    }
}

----
// CONSOLE
// TEST[setup:seats]