[LUCENE-373] Query parts ending with a colon are handled badly

• Type: Bug
• Status: Reopened
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 1.4
• Component/s: core/queryparser
• Labels: newdev

Environment

Operating System: Windows 2000
Platform: PC

• Bugzilla Id: 34453
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Andrew Stevens
• Created: 15/Apr/05 00:09
• Updated: 28/Aug/22 11:21

Description

I'm using Lucene 1.4.3, running
Query query = QueryParser.parse(queryString, "contents", new StandardAnalyzer());

If queryString is "search title:" i.e. specifying a field name without a
corresponding value, I get a parsing exception:

Encountered "<EOF>" at line 1, column 8.
Was expecting one of:
"(" ...
<QUOTED> ...
<TERM> ...
<PREFIXTERM> ...
<WILDTERM> ...
"[" ...
"{" ...
<NUMBER> ...

If queryString is "title: search", there's no exception. However, the parsed
query which is returned is "title:search". If queryString is "title: contents:
text", the parsed query is "title:contents" and the "text" part is ignored
completely. When queryString is "title: text contents:" the above exception is
produced again.

This seems inconsistent. Given that it's pointless searching for an empty
string (since it has no tokens), I'd expect both "search title:" & "title:
search" to be parsed as "search" (or, given the default field I specified,
"contents:search"), and "title: contents: text" & "title: text contents:" to
parse as "text" ("contents:text") i.e. parts which have no term are ignored. At
worst I'd expect them all to throw a ParseException rather than just the ones
with the colon at the end of the string.