[[search-exists]]
== Search Exists API

deprecated[2.1.0, use regular `_search` with `size` set to `0` and `terminate_after` set to `1` instead]

The exists API allows to easily determine if any
matching documents exist for a provided query. It can be executed across one or more indices
and across one or more types. The query can either be provided using a
simple query string as a parameter, or using the
<<query-dsl,Query DSL>> defined within the request
body. Here is an example:

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

$ curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/twitter/tweet/_search/exists' -d '
{
    "query" : {
        "term" : { "user" : "kimchy" }
    }
}'

--------------------------------------------------

NOTE: The query being sent in the body must be nested in a `query` key, same as
how the <<search-search,search api>> works.

Both the examples above do the same thing, which is determine the existence of
tweets from the twitter index for a certain user. The response body will be of
the following format:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
    "exists" : true
}
--------------------------------------------------

[float]
=== Multi index, Multi type

The exists API can be applied to <<search-multi-index-type,multiple types in multiple indices>>.

[float]
=== Request Parameters

When executing exists using the query parameter `q`, the query passed is
a query string using Lucene query parser. There are additional
parameters that can be passed:

[cols="<,<",options="header",]
|=======================================================================
|Name |Description
|`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.

|`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.

|`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`.
|=======================================================================

[float]
=== Request Body

The exists API can use the <<query-dsl,Query DSL>> within
its body in order to express the query that should be executed. The body
content can also be passed as a REST parameter named `source`.

HTTP GET and HTTP POST can be used to execute exists with body.
Since not all clients support GET with body, POST is allowed as well.

[float]
=== Distributed

The exists operation is broadcast across all shards. For each shard id
group, a replica is chosen and executed against it. This means that
replicas increase the scalability of exists. The exists operation also
early terminates shard requests once the first shard reports matched
document existence.

[float]
=== Routing

The routing value (a comma separated list of the routing values) can be
specified to control which shards the exists request will be executed on.