# Searching for reserved characters within fields

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-reserved-characters-within-fields/190610>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [July 15, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-reserved-characters-within-fields/190610 "2019-07-15T20:41:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Alie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alie/32/50196_2.png) [@Alie](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alie)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-reserved-characters-within-fields/190610/1 "2019-07-15T20:41:44Z")

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Hi,

We're currently using Kibana 6.7 and one of our parsed fields is user entered queries. I am frequently searching for specific patterns, etc, within the queries and have been running into an issue with reserved characters.

Example: needed to look at all instances of the query field containing ".com". It could get all the "com" records, but wasn't seeing the ".". I tried escaping with /, but that didn't result in the character getting picked up.

As far as I can tell from reading the documentation, the escape character should work, but I am new to Kibana and not sure what I can try .

I have been using the search in the discover tab as well as trying to add via filters, but not having any success.

I found this old topic, but there was no solution there:

> [@Kibana query of reserved characters](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-query-of-reserved-characters/121569):
>
> I am using the Kibana 'filter builder' to create a search like 'uri is x'. The uri field (from Bro http logs) contains this: /auth/spGo.php?assetid=home&supportid= When I set 'x' to one of these, the search works and finds what I expect (note lack of escaping): /auth/spGo.php?assetid=home&supportid /auth/spGo.php?assetid spGo.php?assetid When I set 'x' to one of these, the search does NOT work and finds nothing: /auth/spGo.php?assetid=home&supporti /auth/spGo.php?asseti php?assetid I…

I wind up needing to query for reserved characters pretty frequently, so any advice is much appreciated!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Marius\_Dragomir](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/marius_dragomir/32/42087_2.png) [@Marius\_Dragomir](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Marius_Dragomir)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 12:35pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-reserved-characters-within-fields/190610/2 "2019-07-18T12:35:45Z")

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You can try wrapping the string in quotes, that should help.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alie/32/50196_2.png) [@Alie](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alie)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 11:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-reserved-characters-within-fields/190610/3 "2019-07-22T23:20:24Z")

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Sadly I can't get that to work.

I have an example where I am looking for user entered queries that contain a +.

The query field is called query, I have tried a few different things such as:

> ```
> query:*"\+"*
> query:*\+*
> query:*\"+"*
> query:"*\+*"
> 
> ```

None of those options work. I can get other reserved characters (like :, for example) to work, but am specifically not getting results for +

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

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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:** [August 19, 2019, 11:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/searching-for-reserved-characters-within-fields/190610/4 "2019-08-19T23:20:47Z")

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