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Search basics

Overview​

This section includes the essentials of performing searches and retrieving objects with the Get function.

Related pages

Get function requirements​

To retrieve objects from Weaviate, you must use the Get function and specify at least:

  • The target class to search, and
  • One or more properties to retrieve.

Simple Get example​

response = (
    client.query
    .get("JeopardyQuestion", ["question"])
    .do()
)

print(response)
Example response

It should produce a response like the one below:

{
  "data": {
    "Get": {
      "JeopardyQuestion": [
        {
          "question": "This prophet passed the time he spent inside a fish offering up prayers"
        },
        // shortened for brevity
      ]
    }
  }
}
objects endpoint != search

The objects endpoint in Weaviate is designed for CRUD operations and not capable of performing searches.

limit returned objects​

Often, you will only want the top n results from the query. This can be achieved by setting a limit as shown below.

response = (
    client.query
    .get("JeopardyQuestion", ["question"])
    .with_limit(1)
    .do()
)

print(response)
Example response

It should produce a response like the one below:

{
  "data": {
    "Get": {
      "JeopardyQuestion": [
        {
          "question": "This prophet passed the time he spent inside a fish offering up prayers"
        },
        // Note this will only have one result as we limited it to 1
      ]
    }
  }
}

Paginate with limit and offset​

If you only want the n results after the first m results from the query, you can do this with limit and offset as shown below.

Be aware that although you will only see n results, this could become an expensive operation as m grows larger, as Weaviate must fetch n+m results.

For exhaustive retrieval, use after instead.

If you want to list and retrieve all objects from a class, use the cursor API instead with the after parameter. Read this guide for more information on how.

response = (
    client.query
    .get("JeopardyQuestion", ["question"])
    .with_limit(1)
    .with_offset(1)
    .do()
)
print(response)
Example response

It should produce a response like the one below:

{
  "data": {
    "Get": {
      "JeopardyQuestion": [
        {
          "question": "Pythons are oviparous, meaning they do this"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Specify the fetched properties​

You can specify the properties to be fetched, as long as one or more are specified.

Object properties​

You can specify object properties as below.

response = (
    client.query
    .get("JeopardyQuestion", ["question", "answer", "points"])
    .with_limit(1)
    .do()
)
print(response)
Example response

It should produce a response like the one below:

{
  "data": {
    "Get": {
      "JeopardyQuestion": [
        {
          "answer": "Jonah",
          "points": 100,
          "question": "This prophet passed the time he spent inside a fish offering up prayers"
        },
      ]
    }
  }
}

Retrieve the object vector​

To retrieve the object vector, request the _additional property and vector sub-property. You can do so as shown below.

response = (
    client.query
    .get("JeopardyQuestion")
    .with_additional("vector")
    .with_limit(1)
    .do()
)
print(response)
Example response

It should produce a response like the one below:

{
  "data": {
    "Get": {
      "JeopardyQuestion": [
        {
          "_additional": {
            "vector": [
              0.0065065133,
              -0.017786196,
              0.005879146,
              0.006707012,
              ...  // shortened for brevity
            ]
          }
        },
      ]
    }
  }
}

Retrieve the object id​

To retrieve the object ID, request the _additional property and id sub-property. You can do so as shown below.

response = (
    client.query
    .get("JeopardyQuestion")
    .with_additional("id")
    .with_limit(1)
    .do()
)
print(response)
Example response

It should produce a response like the one below:

{
  "data": {
    "Get": {
      "JeopardyQuestion": [
        {
          "_additional": {
            "id": "0002bf92-80c8-5d94-af34-0d6c5fea1aaf"
          }
        },
        // shortened for brevity
      ]
    }
  }
}

Retrieve cross-referenced properties​

You can retrieve any properties of cross-referenced objects by specifying:

  • The cross-reference property,
  • The target cross-referenced object class, and
  • The desired properties to retrieve (of the cross-referenced objects).

The following example, retrieves for each JeopardyQuestion object the cross-referenced JeopardyCategory object, and the JeopardyCategory object's title property is returned. The property is accessed using the inline fragment GraphQL syntax.

response = (
    client.query
    .get("JeopardyQuestion", [
      "question",
      "hasCategory { ... on JeopardyCategory { title } }"
    ])
    .with_limit(2)
    .do()
)

print(json.dumps(response, indent=2))
Example response

It should produce a response like the one below:

{
  "data": {
    "Get": {
      "JeopardyQuestion": [
        {
          "hasCategory": [
            {
              "title": "THE BIBLE"
            }
          ],
          "question": "This prophet passed the time he spent inside a fish offering up prayers"
        },
        {
          "hasCategory": [
            {
              "title": "ANIMALS"
            }
          ],
          "question": "Pythons are oviparous, meaning they do this"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

More Resources​

If you can't find the answer to your question here, please look at the:

  1. Frequently Asked Questions. Or,
  2. Knowledge base of old issues. Or,
  3. For questions: Stackoverflow. Or,
  4. For more involved discussion: Weaviate Community Forum. Or,
  5. We also have a Slack channel.