# Characters that cause query to Fail **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [July 26, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/characters-that-cause-query-to-fail/8531 "2012-07-26T19:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Brandon\_Hilkert](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/brandon_hilkert/32/2182_2.png) [@Brandon\_Hilkert](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Brandon_Hilkert)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/characters-that-cause-query-to-fail/8531/1 "2012-07-26T19:43:10Z")
We're doing some sample queries and found that a query with "!" causes the search to fail. A couple questions: - Is this expected? - If so, are there other characters we should remove before querying? ---
**Author:** ![Praveen\_Kariyanahall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4491bb/32.png) [@Praveen\_Kariyanahall](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Praveen_Kariyanahall)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/characters-that-cause-query-to-fail/8531/2 "2012-07-26T19:50:59Z")
> Did you try escaping it ? I also have the same issue with ":" and "/". But > I am not sure the issue is with indexing or searching ? Try escaping the character and run the query("!"), see if that helps. -pk ---
**Author:** ![Brandon\_Hilkert](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/brandon_hilkert/32/2182_2.png) [@Brandon\_Hilkert](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Brandon_Hilkert)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/characters-that-cause-query-to-fail/8531/3 "2012-07-26T19:57:19Z")
Ah....gotcha. Cool. That fixed it! On Thursday, July 26, 2012 3:50:59 PM UTC-4, Praveen Kariyanahalli wrote: > Did you try escaping it ? I also have the same issue with ":" and "/". But > > > I am not sure the issue is with indexing or searching ? > > Try escaping the character and run the query("!"), see if that helps. > > -pk ---
**Author:** ![Chris\_Male](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/chris_male/32/2607_2.png) [@Chris\_Male](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Chris_Male)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 7:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/characters-that-cause-query-to-fail/8531/4 "2012-07-27T07:11:10Z")
Hi Brandon, > - If so, are there other characters we should remove before querying? There are a number of special characters to watch out for. See the list at the bottom of [Apache Lucene - Query Parser Syntax](http://lucene.apache.org/core/3_6_0/queryparsersyntax.html) ---
**Author:** ![simonw\_2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/simonw_2/32/1130_2.png) [@simonw\_2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/simonw_2)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2012, 9:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/characters-that-cause-query-to-fail/8531/5 "2012-07-28T09:28:48Z")
Brandon, if you don't need query parser support ie. you don't expose operators like AND, OR, NOT or phrases "foo bar" you can simply use a text query which only goes through and analyzer without going through a QueryParser so you don't need to worry about characters and escaping. this has also benefits in security since nobody can issue very slow searches like fuzzy query like foo~2 or wildcards like a\* here is a link: [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/query-dsl/text-query.html) simon On Friday, July 27, 2012 9:11:10 AM UTC+2, Chris Male wrote: > Hi Brandon, > > > - If so, are there other characters we should remove before querying? > > There are a number of special characters to watch out for. See the list > at the bottom of > [Apache Lucene - Query Parser Syntax](http://lucene.apache.org/core/3_6_0/queryparsersyntax.html) ---
**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, 3:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/characters-that-cause-query-to-fail/8531/6 "2017-07-06T03:18:40Z")