How do I make sure null or missing fields comes first during sort on that field in Elastic Search

Question

I am writing a Java client for elastic search. How do make sure my null or missing field comes always first when sorting using that field.

Answer 1

Please make sure you set _first for the "missing" in your search query

{
    "sort" : [
        { "price" : {"missing" : "_first"} },
    ],
    "query" : {
        "term" : { "user" : "kimchy" }
    }
}

In java

FieldSortBuilder sorter = new FieldSortBuilder("price");
sorter.missing("_first");