[[index-modules-codec]]
== Codec module

Codecs define how documents are written to disk and read from disk. The
postings format is the part of the codec that is responsible for reading
and writing the term dictionary, postings lists and positions, as well as the payloads
and offsets stored in the postings list. The doc values format is
responsible for reading column-stride storage for a field and is typically
used for sorting or faceting. When a field doesn't have doc values enabled,
it is still possible to sort or facet by loading field values from the
inverted index into main memory.

Configuring custom postings or doc values formats is an expert feature and
most likely using the builtin formats will suit your needs as is described
in the <<mapping-core-types,mapping section>>.

[WARNING]
Only the default codec, postings format and doc values format are supported:
other formats may break backward compatibility between minor versions of
Elasticsearch, requiring data to be reindexed.


[float]
[[custom-postings]]
=== Configuring a custom postings format

A custom postings format can be defined in the index settings in the
`codec` part. The `codec` part can be configured when creating an index
or updating index settings. An example on how to define your custom
postings format:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
curl -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/twitter/' -d '{
    "settings" : {
        "index" : {
            "codec" : {
          "postings_format" : {
             "my_format" : {
                "type" : "pulsing",
                "freq_cut_off" : "5"
             }
          }
       }
        }
    }
}'
--------------------------------------------------

Then when defining your mapping you can use the `my_format` name in the
`postings_format` option as the example below illustrates:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
  "person" : {
     "properties" : {
         "second_person_id" : {"type" : "string", "postings_format" : "my_format"}
     }
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

[float]
=== Available postings formats

[float]
[[direct-postings]]
==== Direct postings format

Wraps the default postings format for on-disk storage, but then at read
time loads and stores all terms & postings directly in RAM. This
postings format makes no effort to compress the terms and posting list
and therefore is memory intensive, but because of this it gives a
substantial increase in search performance. Because this holds all term
bytes as a single byte[], you cannot have more than 2.1GB worth of terms
in a single segment.

This postings format offers the following parameters:

`min_skip_count`::
    The minimum number terms with a shared prefix to
    allow a skip pointer to be written. The default is *8*.

`low_freq_cutoff`::
    Terms with a lower document frequency use a
    single array object representation for postings and positions. The
    default is *32*.

Type name: `direct`

[float]
[[memory-postings]]
==== Memory postings format

A postings format that stores terms & postings (docs, positions,
payloads) in RAM, using an FST. This postings format does write to disk,
but loads everything into memory. The memory postings format has the
following options:

`pack_fst`::
    A boolean option that defines if the in memory structure
    should be packed once its build. Packed will reduce the size for the
    data-structure in memory but requires more memory during building.
    Default is *false*.

`acceptable_overhead_ratio`::
    The compression ratio specified as a
    float, that is used to compress internal structures. Example ratios `0`
    (Compact, no memory overhead at all, but the returned implementation may
    be slow), `0.5` (Fast, at most 50% memory overhead, always select a
    reasonably fast implementation), `7` (Fastest, at most 700% memory
    overhead, no compression). Default is `0.2`.

Type name: `memory`

[float]
[[bloom-postings]]
==== Bloom filter posting format

The bloom filter postings format wraps a delegate postings format and on
top of this creates a bloom filter that is written to disk. During
opening this bloom filter is loaded into memory and used to offer
"fast-fail" reads. This postings format is useful for low doc-frequency
fields such as primary keys. The bloom filter postings format has the
following options:

`delegate`::
    The name of the configured postings format that the
    bloom filter postings format will wrap.

`fpp`::
    The desired false positive probability specified as a
    floating point number between 0 and 1.0. The `fpp` can be configured for
    multiple expected insertions. Example expression: *10k=0.01,1m=0.03*. If
    number docs per index segment is larger than *1m* then use *0.03* as fpp
    and if number of docs per segment is larger than *10k* use *0.01* as
    fpp. The last fallback value is always *0.03*. This example expression
    is also the default.

Type name: `bloom`

[[codec-bloom-load]]
[TIP]
==================================================

As of 1.4, the bloom filters are no longer loaded at search time by
default: they consume RAM in proportion to the number of unique terms,
which can quickly add up for certain use cases, and separate
performance improvements have made the performance gains with bloom
filters very small.

You can enable loading of the bloom filter at search time on a
per-index basis by updating the index settings:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
PUT /old_index/_settings?index.codec.bloom.load=true
--------------------------------------------------

This setting, which defaults to `false`, can be updated on a live index. Note,
however, that changing the value will cause the index to be reopened, which
will invalidate any existing caches.

==================================================

[float]
[[pulsing-postings]]
==== Pulsing postings format

The pulsing implementation in-lines the posting lists for very low
frequent terms in the term dictionary. This is useful to improve lookup
performance for low-frequent terms. This postings format offers the
following parameters:

`min_block_size`::
    The minimum block size the default Lucene term
    dictionary uses to encode on-disk blocks. Defaults to *25*.

`max_block_size`::
    The maximum block size the default Lucene term
    dictionary uses to encode on-disk blocks. Defaults to *48*.

`freq_cut_off`::
    The document frequency cut off where pulsing
    in-lines posting lists into the term dictionary. Terms with a document
    frequency less or equal to the cutoff will be in-lined. The default is
    *1*.

Type name: `pulsing`

[float]
[[default-postings]]
==== Default postings format

The default postings format has the following options:

`min_block_size`::
    The minimum block size the default Lucene term
    dictionary uses to encode on-disk blocks. Defaults to *25*.

`max_block_size`::
    The maximum block size the default Lucene term
    dictionary uses to encode on-disk blocks. Defaults to *48*.

Type name: `default`

[float]
=== Configuring a custom doc values format

Custom doc values format can be defined in the index settings in the
`codec` part. The `codec` part can be configured when creating an index
or updating index settings. An example on how to define your custom
doc values format:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
curl -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/twitter/' -d '{
    "settings" : {
        "index" : {
            "codec" : {
                "doc_values_format" : {
                    "my_format" : {
                        "type" : "disk"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}'
--------------------------------------------------

Then we defining your mapping your can use the `my_format` name in the
`doc_values_format` option as the example below illustrates:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
  "product" : {
     "properties" : {
         "price" : {"type" : "integer", "doc_values_format" : "my_format"}
     }
  }
}
--------------------------------------------------

[float]
=== Available doc values formats

[float]
==== Memory doc values format

A doc values format that stores all values in a FST in RAM. This format does
write to disk but the whole data-structure is loaded into memory when reading
the index. The memory postings format has no options.

Type name: `memory`

[float]
==== Disk doc values format

A doc values format that stores and reads everything from disk. This is
generally not a good idea to use it as it saves very little memory compared
to the default doc values format although it can be significantly slower.
The disk doc values format has no options.

Type name: `disk`

[float]
==== Default doc values format

The default doc values format tries to make a good compromise between speed and
memory usage by only loading into memory data-structures that matter for
performance. This makes this doc values format a good fit for most use-cases.
The default doc values format has no options.

Type name: `default`
