How to search for missing text

[Alan]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Search syntax for text fields

How do I use JQL to search for issues where "X does not contain Y", if X is a plain text field and Y is a particular word

I have tried "NOT X ~ Y", but that seems to give all issues where X contains something else apart from Y, but excludes all those issues where X is empty. I wish to include issues where X is empty in my results.

[Ignacio Pulgar · Accepted solution]

Try adding:

OR X is EMPTY

You might need to use parenthesis appropriately if there are more required conditions.

[Alan]

Thank you @Ignacio Gavier, that solved my problem exactly.

May I suggest that "EMPTY" be mentioned on the Search syntax for text fields page, especially as it is also not mentioned on the Query Parser Syntax page of the Lucene documentation which is linked thence

[Ignacio Pulgar]

It might be a good idea that Atlassian referenced the the EMPTY keyword also there, besides of here.