Combine elasticsearch date range queries with null values

Question

I would like to use date range query like the following :

{
    "range" : {
        "deadline" : {
            "gte" : "2016-12-14",
        }
    }
}

My index contains empty values for deadline as well. I would like to get those null dated documents in search results along with the dates in range. How can I combine date range with "must_not" exist query in elastic 5.x

Answer 1

I think a bool query would do the trick.

{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "should": [
        {
          "range": {
            "deadline": {
              "gte": "2016-12-14"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "bool": {
            "must_not": {
              "exists": {
                "field": "deadline"
              }
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

In Elasticsearch indexes null values don't exist, so we use the exist query. Using the missing query would been less verbose, but it's deprecated since 2.2.

I don't have enough information so my example runs in query context, but maybe filter context would be more convenient in this case.