Skip to content

[DOCS] Clarify support for doc_values #124047

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
merged 3 commits into from
Mar 6, 2025
Merged

[DOCS] Clarify support for doc_values #124047

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
3 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
c8bd264
Update doc-values.md
marciw Mar 4, 2025
bbb0949
Make the note more visible
marciw Mar 4, 2025
473807c
fix link
marciw Mar 4, 2025
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
18 changes: 13 additions & 5 deletions docs/reference/elasticsearch/mapping-reference/doc-values.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -9,7 +9,9 @@ Most fields are [indexed](/reference/elasticsearch/mapping-reference/mapping-ind

Sorting, aggregations, and access to field values in scripts requires a different data access pattern. Instead of looking up the term and finding documents, we need to be able to look up the document and find the terms that it has in a field.

Doc values are the on-disk data structure, built at document index time, which makes this data access pattern possible. They store the same values as the `_source` but in a column-oriented fashion that is way more efficient for sorting and aggregations. Doc values are supported on almost all field types, with the *notable exception of `text` and `annotated_text` fields*.
The `doc_values` field is an on-disk data structure that is built at document index time and enables efficient data access. It stores the same values as `_source`, but in a columnar format that is more efficient for sorting and aggregation.

Doc values are supported on most field types, excluding `text` and `annotated_text` fields. See also [Disabling doc values](#_disabling_doc_values).

## Doc-value-only fields [doc-value-only-fields]

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -41,7 +43,15 @@ PUT my-index-000001

## Disabling doc values [_disabling_doc_values]

All fields which support doc values have them enabled by default. If you are sure that you don’t need to sort or aggregate on a field, or access the field value from a script, you can disable doc values in order to save disk space:
For all fields that support them, `doc_values` are enabled by default. If you're certain you don't need to sort or aggregate on a field, or access its value from a script, you can disable `doc_values` in order to save disk space.

::::{note}
You cannot disable doc values for [`wildcard`](/reference/elasticsearch/mapping-reference/keyword.md#wildcard-field-type) fields.

In some field types, such as [`search_as_you_type`](/reference/elasticsearch/mapping-reference/search-as-you-type.md), doc values appear in API responses but can't be configured. Enabling or disabling `doc_values` for these fields might result in an error or have no effect.
::::

In the following example, `doc_values` is disabled on one field:

```console
PUT my-index-000001
Expand All @@ -64,9 +74,7 @@ PUT my-index-000001
2. The `session_id` has `doc_values` disabled, but can still be queried.


::::{note}
You cannot disable doc values for [`wildcard`](/reference/elasticsearch/mapping-reference/keyword.md#wildcard-field-type) fields.
::::