# Escaping reserved characters in a query

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/escaping-reserved-characters-in-a-query/23992>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 19, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/escaping-reserved-characters-in-a-query/23992 "2015-06-19T13:54:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![trekr5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@trekr5](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/trekr5)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/escaping-reserved-characters-in-a-query/23992/1 "2015-06-19T13:54:57Z")

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Hello,

I'm having difficulties escaping reserved characters in an es query

I've tried this and receive 0 total hits.

```
"query"=> {...
"bool" => {
  "must"=> [
     {"term"=> {"type"=> "iis6" }},
     {"term"=> { "referer"=> "https\:\/\/1234\/donation\/thank\-you" }},
    "range"=> {

```

.......  
....}  
However when i chop up the string and do:-

```
"must"=> [
{"term"=> {"type"=> "iis6"}},
{"term"=> {"referer"=> "1234"}},
{"term"=> {"referer"=> "donation"}}
....
]

```

I get hits.

Can you please tell me what I'm doing wrong?

---

<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, 12:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/escaping-reserved-characters-in-a-query/23992/2 "2017-07-06T00:06:25Z")

</div>