Azure Cognitive Search Complex object filtering - azure-cognitive-search

Question

I have an index with azure cognative search but cant seem to find the right syntax to query it for what I need.
I have documents that looks like the below and want to be able to pass in a search for "black denim shirt" and have that matched against each item object in the document rather than the whole document.
I need this match to be confined to the objects as I don't want the "black" and "denim" from the "black denim shirt" query to be matched to a "black denim jeans". Therefore the match/higher ranked result should be Document 2
Document 1:
{
"id": "Style1",
"itemKeyWords": [
{
"productKeyWords": "shirt,oversized shirt,denim",
"attributeKeyWords": "blue"
},
{
"productKeyWords": "Skinny, denim, jeans",
"attributeKeyWords": "black"
}
]
}
Document 2:
{
"id": "Style2",
"itemKeyWords": [
{
"productKeyWords": "shirt,oversized shirt,denim",
"attributeKeyWords": "black"
},
{
"productKeyWords": "Skinny, denim, jeans",
"attributeKeyWords": "blue"
}
]
}
I have the itemKeyWords set up in the index as a
{
"name": "itemKeyWords",
"type": "Collection(Edm.ComplexType)",
"fields": [
{
"name": "productKeyWords",
"type": "Edm.String",
"searchable": true,
"filterable": true,
"retrievable": true,
"sortable": false,
"facetable": true,
"key": false,
"indexAnalyzer": null,
"searchAnalyzer": null,
"analyzer": "en.lucene",
"normalizer": null,
"synonymMaps": []
},
{
"name": "attributeKeyWords",
"type": "Edm.String",
"searchable": true,
"filterable": true,
"retrievable": true,
"sortable": false,
"facetable": true,
"key": false,
"indexAnalyzer": null,
"searchAnalyzer": null,
"analyzer": "en.lucene",
"normalizer": null,
"synonymMaps": []
}
]
}
I have tried various attempts using this as a guid but cant seem to get the syntax right
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/search/search-howto-complex-data-types?tabs=portal

Answer 1

Unfortunately, as of today, it is not possible to make "search" requests (queries that rely on the tokenized content) that enforce the requirement to have all matches within a specific entry of a complex object collection. This is only supported for filters right now (as long as the filter does not rely on the search.in function).
I can think of two (less than idea) work around:
Index each entry of the collection as separate documents
Flatten the sub-fields into a single field:
AggregateField: "Skinny, denim, jeans. black"
And then emit a query that use proximity search (to make sure all terms are within a certain distance):
queryType=full&search="black denim jeans"~5
If it's important for you to still keep the structured version of the content in the document (attribute and keywords separately), you can still index them along side the aggregated field for retrieval purpose (you can target different fields for matching purpose vs the one you actually return in the response by using select and searchFields)
queryType=full&search="black denim jeans"~3&searchFields=aggregatedFields&select=productKeyWords, attributeKeyWords
or
queryType=full&search=aggregatedFields:"black denim jeans"~3&select=productKeyWords,attributeKeyWords