---
title: More Like This
description: Finds documents that are "like" another document.
canonical: https://docs.paradedb.com/documentation/query-builder/specialized/more-like-this
---

The more like this (MLT) query finds documents that are "like" another document.
To use this query, pass the [key field](/documentation/indexing/create-index#choosing-a-key-field) value of the input document
to `pdb.more_like_this`.

For instance, the following query finds documents that are "like" a document with an `id` of `3`:

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this(3)
ORDER BY id;
```

```ini Expected Response
 id |     description      | rating | category
----+----------------------+--------+----------
  3 | Sleek running shoes  |      5 | Footwear
  4 | White jogging shoes  |      3 | Footwear
  5 | Generic shoes        |      4 | Footwear
 13 | Sturdy hiking boots  |      4 | Footwear
 23 | Comfortable slippers |      3 | Footwear
 33 | Winter woolen socks  |      5 | Footwear
(6 rows)
```

In the output above, notice that documents matching any of the indexed fields, `description`, `rating`, and `category`, were returned.
This is because, by default, all fields present in the index are considered for matching.

<Note>
  The only exception is JSON fields, which are not yet supported and are ignored
  by the more like this query.
</Note>

To find only documents that match on specific fields, provide an array of field names as the second argument:

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this(3, ARRAY['description'])
ORDER BY id;
```

```ini Expected Response
 id |     description     | rating | category
----+---------------------+--------+----------
  3 | Sleek running shoes |      5 | Footwear
  4 | White jogging shoes |      3 | Footwear
  5 | Generic shoes       |      4 | Footwear
(3 rows)
```

<Note>
  Because JSON fields are not yet supported for MLT, an error will be returned
  if a JSON field is passed into the array.
</Note>

## How It Works

Let's look at how the MLT query works under the hood:

1. Stored values for the input document's fields are retrieved. If they are text fields, they are tokenized and filtered in the same way
   as the field was during [index creation](/documentation/indexing/create-index).
2. A set of representative terms is created from the input document. For example, in the statement above, these terms would be
   `sleek`, `running`, and `shoes` for the `description` field; `5` for the `rating` field; `footwear` for the `category` field.
3. Documents with at least one term match across any of the fields are considered a match.

## Using a Custom Input Document

In addition to providing a key field value, a custom document can also be provided as JSON.
The JSON keys are field names and must correspond to field names in the index.

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this('{"description": "Sleek running shoes", "category": "footwear"}')
ORDER BY id;
```

## Configuration Options

### Term Frequency

`min_term_frequency` excludes terms that appear fewer than a certain number of times in the input document,
while `max_term_frequency` excludes terms that appear more than that many times. By default, no terms are excluded
based on term frequency.

For instance, the following query returns no results because no term appears twice in the input document.

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this(3, min_term_frequency => 2)
ORDER BY id;
```

### Document Frequency

`min_doc_frequency` excludes terms that appear in fewer than a certain number of documents across the entire index,
while `max_doc_frequency` excludes terms that appear in more than that many documents. By default, no terms are excluded
based on document frequency.

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this(3, min_doc_frequency => 3)
ORDER BY id;
```

### Max Query Terms

By default, only the top 25 terms across all fields are considered for matching. Terms are scored using a combination of inverse document
frequency and term frequency (TF-IDF) -- this means that terms that appear frequently in the input document and are rare across the index
score the highest.

This can be configured with `max_query_terms`:

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this(3, max_query_terms => 10)
ORDER BY id;
```

### Term Length

`min_word_length` and `max_word_length` can be used to exclude terms that are too short or too long, respectively. By default, no terms
are excluded based on length.

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this(3, min_word_length => 5)
ORDER BY id;
```

### Custom Stopwords

To exclude terms from being considered, provide a text array to `stopwords`:

```sql
SELECT id, description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE id @@@ pdb.more_like_this(3, stopwords => ARRAY['the', 'a'])
ORDER BY id;
```
