# Searching asterisk using query\_match did not work as expected **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [June 4, 2013, 9:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-asterisk-using-query-match-did-not-work-as-expected/12253 "2013-06-04T09:11:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rakesh\_rakshit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e8cbc/32.png) [@rakesh\_rakshit](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rakesh_rakshit)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 9:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-asterisk-using-query-match-did-not-work-as-expected/12253/1 "2013-06-04T09:11:13Z")
Hi all, I have an index which has data like this: {c101=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2, timestamp=1211033401} And the column c101 uses standard analyzer by default. Now I am querying data on this 'c101' column using the following query: {"query" : { ``` "query_string" : { "c101" : { "query" : ``` ""mail.google.\*com"" ``` } } ``` }} The above query worked as expected with zero hits. But when I change the position of the '\*' to start and end positions like this : "query" : ""[mail.google.com](http://mail.google.com)\*"" OR "query" : ""\*[mail.google.com](http://mail.google.com)"" , I find the hits which was not expected. Can someone tell me if I am doing something wrong or is there any other way to achieve what I want? Thanks in advance. Regards, Rakesh Kumar Rakshit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 9:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-asterisk-using-query-match-did-not-work-as-expected/12253/2 "2013-06-04T09:20:57Z")
And the question is exactly: "what do you want to achieve?" Sounds like you need an analyzer that does not break your text into terms but keep it as is. May be, you should use a keyword tokenizer or not analyze at all that field. On a side note, you should avoid using wildcards in query. Prefer ngrams filters when building your index than wildcards. -- David Pilato | Technical Advocate | [Elasticsearch.com](http://Elasticsearch.com) @dadoonet | @elasticsearchfr | @scrutmydocs Le 4 juin 2013 à 11:11, rakesh rakshit [ihavethepotential@gmail.com](mailto:ihavethepotential@gmail.com) a écrit : > Hi all, > > I have an index which has data like this: > > {c101=[https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2](https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2), timestamp=1211033401} > > And the column c101 uses standard analyzer by default. > > Now I am querying data on this 'c101' column using the following query: > > {"query" : { > > ``` > "query_string" : { > > "c101" : { > > "query" : "\"mail.google.*com\"" > > } > > } > > ``` > > }} > > The above query worked as expected with zero hits. > > But when I change the position of the '\*' to start and end positions like this : > > "query" : ""mail.google.com\*"" OR "query" : ""\*[mail.google.com](http://mail.google.com)"" > > , I find the hits which was not expected. > > Can someone tell me if I am doing something wrong or is there any other way to achieve what I want? > > Thanks in advance. > > Regards, > Rakesh Kumar Rakshit > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![rakesh\_rakshit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e8cbc/32.png) [@rakesh\_rakshit](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rakesh_rakshit)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 10:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-asterisk-using-query-match-did-not-work-as-expected/12253/3 "2013-06-04T10:04:05Z")
Hi David, Thanks for the quick reply. And the question is exactly: "what do you want to achieve?" > I want to index and search data which may contain asterisk(\*). I read somewhere that we can search for special characters by including the text in escaped quotes like ""mytext"". So I have two questions: 1. What kind of analyzers/tokenizers I should so that the indexed data includes asterisk or any other special character? 2. How should I search for those data containing asterisk(\*) or some other special characters? Right now I was trying to fire a query assuming the data contains asterisk(\*) as follows: {"query" : { ``` "query_string" : { "c101" : { "query" : ``` ""mail.google.\*com"" ``` } } ``` }} This is not returning a hit as expected. But if I fire ""mail.google.com\*"" , it returns a hit. I guess the search data is getting tokenized around asterisk. Means if I queried for : "query" : ""mail.google.\*com"" It may be breaking it into two tokens 'mail.google.' and 'com' and it searches for both tokens in '[mail.google.com](http://mail.google.com)' and fails. But when I query ""mail.google.com\*"" it may be breaking it into one token '[mail.google.com](http://mail.google.com)' and matches a hit. Hope I am able to explain my scenario a bit. Thanks, Rakesh -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**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, 2:33am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-asterisk-using-query-match-did-not-work-as-expected/12253/4 "2017-07-06T02:33:06Z")