# Can we use Chinese character in wildcard query

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-we-use-chinese-character-in-wildcard-query/14038>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [October 21, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-we-use-chinese-character-in-wildcard-query/14038 "2013-10-21T13:04:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mohit\_Kumar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@mohit\_Kumar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mohit_Kumar)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-we-use-chinese-character-in-wildcard-query/14038/1 "2013-10-21T13:04:48Z")

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Hi folks,  
I am trying to get data from a Chinese keyword, but it always showing Zero  
hits.

Elasticsearch query :

\*{"query":{"wildcard" : { "text" : " _好不 " }}}_

I am using java program to fire this query. I have tried UTF-8 conversion  
to get data but failed to get any data.

thanks in advance.

Regrads  
Mohit

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**Author:** ![brian\_yoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f1d935/32.png) [@brian\_yoder](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/brian_yoder)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-we-use-chinese-character-in-wildcard-query/14038/2 "2013-10-21T16:46:53Z")

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The prefix query (snippet below) works for me. For example:

{"prefix" : {"words" : "醫"}}

I haven't tried a wildcard query in Java, since is is rather like a very  
slow grep and not generally useful. Ending wildcards are the same as prefix  
queries (logically) but are typically rather fast in my experience.

I hope this helps!

Brian

On Monday, October 21, 2013 9:04:48 AM UTC-4, Mohit Kumar Yadav wrote:

> Hi folks,  
> I am trying to get data from a Chinese keyword, but it always showing  
> Zero hits.
> 
> Elasticsearch query :
> 
> \*{"query":{"wildcard" : { "text" : " _好不 " }}}_
> 
> I am using java program to fire this query. I have tried UTF-8 conversion  
> to get data but failed to get any data.
> 
> thanks in advance.
> 
> Regrads  
> Mohit

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**Author:** ![brian\_yoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f1d935/32.png) [@brian\_yoder](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/brian_yoder)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-we-use-chinese-character-in-wildcard-query/14038/3 "2013-10-21T16:57:55Z")

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By the way, when I first tried to create a working example using my local  
test/dev index, my Chinese characters were missing and queries against them  
did not work. I don't exactly recall the last time I deleted and reloaded  
that index, nor do I remember exactly which ES versions were changed. But I  
am currently running on ES 0.90.3, and I believe the index was deleted and  
recreated (with successful regression tests including Chinese characters)  
no earlier than 0.90.0. So I don't have any logs to show; just results. But  
here are the results:

In general, this is against a synonym "table". (Yeah, I know. But I do find  
that a separate query for synonyms means that changing synonyms does not  
require a reload or reindex of the data. And performance is very good.)

{  
"bool" : {  
"must" : [ {  
"match" : {  
"field" : {  
"query" : "gn",  
"type" : "boolean"  
}  
}  
}, {  
"prefix" : {  
"words" : "醫"  
}  
} ]  
}  
}

1. When I first used my current laptop set-up to get a working example,  
nothing was found. When I queried one of the English terms, the following  
result came back. Note that the last value is expected to be a Chinese  
phrase but comes out null instead:

{ "field" : ["gn" , "o" , "cnam"] , "words" : [ "Dr" , "Doctor" , "MD" ,  
"Phd" , null ] }

1. After deleting and reloading the index, the query now returns all words  
including the Chinese:

{ "field" : ["gn" , "o" , "cnam"] , "words" : [ "Dr" , "Doctor" , "MD" ,  
"Phd" , "醫生" ] }

Not sure why, since this has always worked starting with my initial ES  
version 19.4 and hasn't yet (until today) failed.

Brian

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-we-use-chinese-character-in-wildcard-query/14038/4 "2017-07-06T02:11:22Z")

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