[LUCENE-1122] queryparser whitespace escaping and documentation?

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Component/s: core/queryparser, general/website
• Lucene Fields: New
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Chris M. Hostetter
• Created: 08/Jan/08 08:53
• Updated: 28/Aug/22 11:44
• Resolved: 10/Mar/13 13:26

Description

as noted in this solr thread...

http://www.nabble.com/PhraseQuery-and-WildcardQuery-to14503609.html#a14503609

...it's possible to escape a whitespace character in the value of a term or prefix query by using a backslash so that the QueryParser will not treat it as "special" (ie: won't split on it when dividing the input into chunks for analysis).

at a minimum, this should be noted here...

http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/queryparsersyntax.html#Escaping%20Special%20Characters

...but it got me wondering...

• is this a side effect of something else, or will QueryParser really respect this everywhere? even in field names? (i haven't tested) ... i think this is a result of QueryParser allowing you to escape any character even if it isn't "special" to the syntax
• shouldn't a space be considered "special" since it does trigger certain behavior? ... so shouldn't QueryParser.escape(String) escape spaces as well as the other special characters?

Issue Links

• relates to: LUCENE-1000 queryparsersyntax.html escaping section needs beefed up