Query language specification Leave feedback

The text below represents the complete specification of the search query DSL (Domain Specific Language) used in text queries. See also Search operation table, Search flow.

Before a query is parsed, each alias reference in the query is replaced with the text associated with the alias in the alias dictionary of the index. An alias reference has the following syntax:

alias-reference:

• @alias-name

alias-name:

• One or more characters from the ranges a-z and 0-9

An alias reference is replaced only if it is preceded by the beginning of the query, a space or an opening parenthesis, and is followed by a space, a closing parenthesis or the end of the query. For details, see the Using aliases page.

The syntax of a query after alias substitution is as follows.

query:

• regex-query
• non-regex-query

regex-query:

• ^pattern

non-regex-query:

• unary-query
• binary-query

unary-query:

• word
• word-pattern (since v.18.12)
• phrase-query
• field-name-query
• numeric-range-query
• date-range-query
• parenthesized-query
• not-query

phrase-query:

• " phrase-item-list "

phrase-item-list:

• phrase-item phrase-item
• phrase-item-list phrase-item

phrase-item:

• word
• word-pattern (since v.18.12)
• wildcard (since v.18.1)

word:

• any word without special characters

word-pattern (since v.18.12)

• any non-special characters
• ? (question marks)
• ?(n~m) (Wildcard groups, where n is byte-number, m is byte-number, and n <= m. For example: ?(1~2) )

wildcard: (since v.18.1)

• * byte-number
• * byte-number ~~ byte-number

byte-number: (since v.18.1)

• Any integer number in the range from 0 to 255

field-name-query:

• field-name: unary-query

numeric-range-query:

• number ~~ number

number:

• Any non-negative integer number

date-range-query:

• daterange( date ~~ date )

date:

• A date in the format 'yyyy-MM-dd'. For example: 2019-09-16

parenthesized-query:

• ( non-regex-query )

not-query:

• ! unary-query
• NOT unary-query

binary-query:

• and-query
• or-query

and-query:

• non-regex-query & unary-query
• non-regex-query AND unary-query

or-query:

• non-regex-query | unary-query
• non-regex-query || unary-query
• non-regex-query OR unary-query

escape-sequence: (since v.19.2)

• \N
  where N is one of
  ( ) : " & | ! ^ ~ * ? \
  or
  s (for space character)
• \uhhhh
  where h is hexadecimal digit (for any Unicode character)

You may easily run the code from documentation articles and see the features in action in our GitHub examples:

• GroupDocs.Search for .NET examples

• GroupDocs.Search for Java examples

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