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#54853 new defect (bug)

Search only searching phrases and not searching individual terms

Reported by:	jchang	Owned by:
Priority:	normal	Milestone:	Awaiting Review
Component:	Query	Version:	5.8.3
Severity:	normal	Keywords:	needs-patch
Cc:		Focuses:

Description

get_posts(array(
  "post_type" => "fruit",
  "s" => "apple orange banana"
));

should search for each term separately, but it does not. It searches the entire string as a phrase.

Issue is within /wp-includes/class-wp-query.php line 1398. It's a simple change:

$searchand = ' AND ';
to
$searchand = ' OR ';

Change History (4)

#1 in reply to: ↑ description @parinpanjari
4 years ago

The function we check that we are NOT viewing the admin area, that we ARE constructing the main query and that we ARE making a search.

add_filter('posts_search', 'my_search_is_exact', 20, 2);
function my_search_is_exact($search, $wp_query){

    global $wpdb;

    if(empty($search))
        return $search;

    $q = $wp_query->query_vars;
    $n = !empty($q['exact']) ? '' : '%';

    $search = $searchand = '';

    foreach((array)$q['search_terms'] as $term) :

        $term = esc_sql(like_escape($term));

        $search.= "{$searchand}($wpdb->posts.post_title REGEXP '[[:<:]]{$term}[[:>:]]') OR ($wpdb->posts.post_content REGEXP '[[:<:]]{$term}[[:>:]]')";

        $searchand = ' AND ';

    endforeach;

    if(!empty($search)) :
        $search = " AND ({$search}) ";
        if(!is_user_logged_in())
            $search .= " AND ($wpdb->posts.post_password = '') ";
    endif;

    return $search;

}

Last edited 4 years ago by SergeyBiryukov (previous) (diff)

#2 follow-up: ↓ 4 @SergeyBiryukov
4 years ago

Severity blocker → normal

Hi there, welcome to WordPress Trac! Thanks for the ticket.

get_posts(array(
  "post_type" => "fruit",
  "s" => "apple orange banana"
));
should search for each term separately, but it does not. It searches the entire string as a phrase.

Just noting that the search ordering logic is slightly more advanced.

Some history here:

[4426] / #3177 (WordPress 2.1+) allowed "quoted strings" to be used in searches for exact matches.
[25632] / #7394 (WordPress 3.7+) orders search results by relevance, rather than by date.

The ordering logic is as follows:

Full sentence matches in post titles.
All search terms in post titles.
Any search terms in post titles.
Full sentence matches in post content.
Each section and any remaining posts are then sorted by date.

Additionally, WP_Query::parse_query has a 'sentence' argument that controls whether to search by phrase.

So it seems to me that the default search behavior works as intended and documented, I don't see a bug here. As noted above, this can be customized using the posts_search or posts_search_orderby filters.

Version 0, edited 4 years ago by SergeyBiryukov (next)

#3 @thelovekesh
4 years ago

Implemented logic seems nice to me. If you keep $searchand = ' OR ' then it will lookup according to the words for each search statement. In many scenarios, a post title can be passed to search, and you don't want to see results based on words at that time.

#4 in reply to: ↑ 2 @jchang
4 years ago

Replying to SergeyBiryukov:

Hi there, welcome to WordPress Trac! Thanks for the ticket.
get_posts(array(
  "post_type" => "fruit",
  "s" => "apple orange banana"
));
should search for each term separately, but it does not. It searches the entire string as a phrase.
Just noting that the search ordering logic is slightly more advanced.

Some history here:

[4426] / #3177 (WordPress 2.1+) allowed "quoted strings" to be used in searches for exact matches.
[25632] / #7394 (WordPress 3.7+) orders search results by relevance, rather than by date.

The ordering logic is as follows:

Full sentence matches in post titles.
All search terms in post titles.
Any search terms in post titles.
Full sentence matches in post content.
Each section and any remaining posts are then sorted by date.

Additionally, WP_Query::parse_query() has a 'sentence' argument that controls whether to search by phrase.

So it seems to me that the default search behavior works as intended and documented, I don't see a bug here. As noted above, this can be customized using the posts_search or posts_search_orderby filters.

If left as it is, the "sentence" argument would have no effect on the outcome of a search. The documented behavior says it should search each term individually unless "sentence" is set to true (defaults to false).

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