How to phrase search with punctuation

[Matt Crozier]

We have a custom text field that lists system components - for example:

SYSOBJ/MFS_INIT
VSL_CONFIG/VC_SORT_AMV

but phrase searches on this field still results in false finds.  For example, searching this field for "MFS_INIT" (quoted)

"project = COLLECT AND File/Record" ~ "MFS_INIT"

will find issues that contain 'MFS' or 'INIT' but not strictly 'MFS_INIT'.  I get the same results whether or not the search value is quoted.  I've tried escaping the underscore character in the search value "MFS\u005FINIT" but this makes no difference.

How can these searches be performed?

Cheers, Matt.

[Daniel Turczanski - JQL Search Extensions · Accepted solution]

Hi @Matt Crozier

Standard JQL doesn't easily allow searching for exact words, special phrases and patterns.

To get the wildcard support, use our professional indexing service JQL Search Extensions

After you install the app, you can simply search:

issue in wildcardMatch("File/Record", "*MFS_INIT*")

Check out the documentation for more examples.

I hope this helps!

Daniel

[Matt Crozier]

Hi Daniel.  It looks like there's a lot of other useful stuff in the app as well so certainly worth a look.  Thanks!

[Matt Crozier]

Hi Daniel,

If I try the search above, I get a "wildcardMatch - Querying by field 'File/Record' which is of type string is not supported" error.  File/Record is one of our custom fields.  Are we not able to search these?

Cheers, Matt.

[Daniel Turczanski - JQL Search Extensions]

Hey @Matt Crozier

We've added a support for the textarea fields based on your feedback. Can you mark my answer as an accepted solution?

Thanks!

[Trudy Claspill]

There appears to be a known issue in Atlassian's backlog concerning this:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-68752

On a tangential note, I also found this about handling special characters, but it doesn't call out underscore as one of the characters.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-work-management/docs/use-advanced-search-with-jira-query-language-jql/

And I found that there is an issue open concerning searching for the square brackets characters also.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-75866

[Matt Crozier]

Thanks Trudy!  I've added comments to those issues so hopefully they might get some traction.

Cheers, Matt.