Hard Separators for Phrase Search about meilisearch

[CaroFG]

The second issue described is also an expected behavior, when you use phrase search (you enclose your query terms in ") Meilisearch will return documents containing all those query terms. In your case, documents containing both bot and test.

If you want to find all documents containing bot and/or test, you should not enclose them in double quotes:
client.index('movies').search('bot test').then((res) => console.log(res))

[curquiza]

Hello @anh1

This is an expected behavior. Indeed, there is a special case with the « . » and the « , » due to the « number » support like « 1.2 ».
When there is no space after « . » or « , » the separator is not considered a context separator (aka hard separator). However, putting a blank space after the separator will be considered as you expect

For instance
octavia.butler -> "octavia butler"
octavia. butler -> "octavia" "butler"

[anh1]

octavia. butler

when i run client.index('movies').search('bot test').then((res) => console.log(res)), i get 2 results.
when i run client.index('movies').search('test bot').then((res) => console.log(res)), i get 219 results.
should both run return the same amount documents?

[CaroFG]

Meilisearch uses by default the "last matching strategy": it returns documents containing all the query terms first, then Meilisearch will remove one query term at a time, starting from the end of the query.

For client.index('movies').search('bot test').then((res) => console.log(res))
It will first search for documents containing both query words, 'bot' and 'test', then it will search for results containing just 'bot'.

For client.index('movies').search('test bot').then((res) => console.log(res))
t will first search for documents containing both query words, 'bot' and 'test', then it will search for results containing just 'test'.

You can fin more info on matching strategy in the documentation

[anh1]

Meilisearch uses by default the "last matching strategy": it returns documents containing all the query terms first, then Meilisearch will remove one query term at a time, starting from the end of the query.

For client.index('movies').search('bot test').then((res) => console.log(res)) It will first search for documents containing both query words, 'bot' and 'test', then it will search for results containing just 'bot'.

For client.index('movies').search('test bot').then((res) => console.log(res)) t will first search for documents containing both query words, 'bot' and 'test', then it will search for results containing just 'test'.

You can fin more info on matching strategy in the documentation

Okay. But from a user perspective, when I type in "bot test" or "test bot", I expect all documents containing test or bot to be returned. I wouldn't think the result would contain only "bot" and not "test" or vice versus. If I do a search "bot test", and only receive 2 results containing "bot", then I would assume there are no movies with the word "test" in it which is not the case.

[CaroFG]

Hey,

You are not the only want that would like another behavior. In fact, we have an open product discussion about the subject.

There are currently two matching strategies: all and last. In the discussion linked above, there are others listed, it would be great if you could give your opinion/vote, it greatly helps us shape the product and prioritise features 🙏

[CaroFG]

Since both of the issues described align with the expected Meilisearch behavior, I am going to close this issue. Thank you for bringing this to our attention 🙏