# Hibernate Search with special characters
**URL:** https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983
**Category:** Hibernate Search
**Created:** [January 27, 2021, 11:53am UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983 "2021-01-27T11:53:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Humoyun\_Norboboev](https://discourse.hibernate.org/u/Humoyun_Norboboev)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 11:53am UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983/1 "2021-01-27T11:53:30Z")
Hi. I’m using the hibernate full-text search on my application. My problem is that I could not search if the search string has some special characters. For example, the search strings are like that “042974/UzGTL” or “UzGTL-CON-1556/174278”, hibernate search returns empty response. If I look for _“UzGTL”_,
I can get expected responses, such as
> _UzGTL-CON-1556/174278_
> _UzGTL-CON-1465/043158_
> _046562/UzGTL-CON-1501_
> _2074404/UzGTL-CON-1520_
> _042978/UzGTL-CON-1462_
> _042976/UzGTL-CON-1459_
> _UzGTL-CON-1510 / 2053510_
> _169053/UzGTL-CON-1492_
> _042974/UzGTL-CON-1457_
but if I look for _“UzGTL-”_, then it’ll return empty response.
I also tried to solve with `ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory`. But it didn’t worked. Could you help me to find what is wrong with my code? Thanks for any help.
\*\*The field I need to search is “_ **code** _”
```auto
@Indexed
@Getter
@Setter
@Entity
@DynamicInsert
@DynamicUpdate
@Table(name = "contracts")
@Audited(targetAuditMode = RelationTargetAuditMode.NOT_AUDITED, withModifiedFlag = true)
@org.hibernate.annotations.Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE)
public class _Contract extends _Entity {
@AnalyzerDef(name = "searchTextAnalyzer",
tokenizer = @TokenizerDef(factory = StandardTokenizerFactory.class),
filters = {@TokenFilterDef(factory = LowerCaseFilterFactory.class),
@TokenFilterDef(factory = ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory.class)})
@Fields(value = {@Field(analyze = Analyze.YES, bridge = @FieldBridge(impl = StringBridge.class)),
@Field(analyze = Analyze.NO, name = "codeSort", index = org.hibernate.search.annotations.Index.YES)})
@SortableField(forField = "codeSort")
@Column(unique = true)
private String code;
```
**Query execution is below**
```auto
SearchFilter searchFilter = new SearchFilter();
if (filter.has("contractCode"))
searchFilter.and("code", QueryParser.escape(filter.getString("contractCode")).trim() + "*");
QueryParser parser = new QueryParser("search", searchFactory().getAnalyzer(_Contract.class));
parser.setLowercaseExpandedTerms(true);
org.apache.lucene.search.Query luceneQuery = parser.parse(searchFilter.toString());
FullTextQuery fullTextQuery = fullTextSession().createFullTextQuery(luceneQuery, _Contract.class);
fullTextQuery.initializeObjectsWith(ObjectLookupMethod.SECOND_LEVEL_CACHE, DatabaseRetrievalMethod.QUERY);
fullTextQuery.setFirstResult(filter.getStart());
fullTextQuery.setMaxResults(filter.getSize());
```
I use Lucene.
---
### Author:  [@yrodiere](https://discourse.hibernate.org/u/yrodiere)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 12:02pm UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983/2 "2021-01-27T12:02:05Z")
Hello,
> [@Humoyun\_Norboboev](#):
>
> ```auto
> @AnalyzerDef(name = "searchTextAnalyzer",
> tokenizer = @TokenizerDef(factory = StandardTokenizerFactory.class),
> filters = {@TokenFilterDef(factory = LowerCaseFilterFactory.class),
> @TokenFilterDef(factory = ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory.class)})
> @Fields(value = {@Field(analyze = Analyze.YES, bridge = @FieldBridge(impl = StringBridge.class)),
> @Field(analyze = Analyze.NO, name = "codeSort", index = org.hibernate.search.annotations.Index.YES)})
> @SortableField(forField = "codeSort")
> @Column(unique = true)
> private String code;
>
> ```
This is not how analyzer definitions work. The analyzer definition should go on your class. Then you should use `@Field(analyzer = @Analyzer(definition = "searchTextAnalyzer"))` in your field definition to actually use the analyzer. See [this section of the documentation](https://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/search/5.11/reference/en-US/html_single/#_analysis) for more information.
Don’t forget to [reindex your data](https://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/search/5.11/reference/en-US/html_single/#search-batchindex) before you try to search again.
---
### Author:  [@Humoyun\_Norboboev](https://discourse.hibernate.org/u/Humoyun_Norboboev)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 12:54pm UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983/3 "2021-01-27T12:54:05Z")
I did as you said. I reindexed too. But anyway it returned empty response
```auto
@Indexed
@Getter
@Setter
@Entity
@DynamicInsert
@DynamicUpdate
@Table(name = "contracts")
@Audited(targetAuditMode = RelationTargetAuditMode.NOT_AUDITED, withModifiedFlag = true)
@org.hibernate.annotations.Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE)
@AnalyzerDef(name = "searchTextAnalyzer",
tokenizer = @TokenizerDef(factory = StandardTokenizerFactory.class),
filters = {@TokenFilterDef(factory = LowerCaseFilterFactory.class), @TokenFilterDef(factory = ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory.class)})
public class _Contract extends _Entity {
@Fields(value = {@Field(analyze = Analyze.YES, index = Index.YES, bridge = @FieldBridge(impl = StringBridge.class), analyzer = @Analyzer(definition = "searchTextAnalyzer")),
@Field(analyze = Analyze.NO, name = "codeSort", index = org.hibernate.search.annotations.Index.NO)})
@SortableField(forField = "codeSort")
@Column(unique = true)
private String code;
```
---
### Author:  [@yrodiere](https://discourse.hibernate.org/u/yrodiere)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 1:33pm UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983/4 "2021-01-27T13:33:33Z")
What does `luceneQuery.toString()` return?
---
### Author:  [@Humoyun\_Norboboev](https://discourse.hibernate.org/u/Humoyun_Norboboev)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 2:10pm UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983/5 "2021-01-27T14:10:57Z")
It does **“code:UzGTL\-”** , if I look for **"UzGTL-"**
---
### Author:  [@yrodiere](https://discourse.hibernate.org/u/yrodiere)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983/6 "2021-01-27T14:54:39Z")
It looks like your terms were not analyzed properly by your query parser. They should be lowercased, at the very least. What does `searchFilter.toString()` return?
On a side note, you could also use the [Hibernate Search DSL](https://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/search/5.11/reference/en-US/html_single/#search-query-querydsl) to build your queries.
---
### Author:  [@Humoyun\_Norboboev](https://discourse.hibernate.org/u/Humoyun_Norboboev)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2021, 5:05am UTC](https://discourse.hibernate.org/t/hibernate-search-with-special-characters/4983/7 "2021-01-28T05:05:31Z")
It worked. Thanks a lot 🙂