How to search for literal '(' using portal_catalog or @@search?

[idgserpro]

Don't know if this is already solved in Plone 5 (we're using 4.3x) or if there's a limitation in how catalog works in this specific situation.

We have some Document objects in ZODB that have "Title - (Word)" and we need to be able to search for literal '(' in our queries. When trying to use portal_catalog, we get

ParseError: Token 'EOF' required, u'(' found

Some solutions on the internet says to quote the search, if possible using the same functions already available in some scripts of Plone in skins folder, but they don't answer how to search, literally, for '(' or ')' (we may have other symbols that have this problems).

Is it possible or do we have a limitation in the catalog? Is there a third-party package (AdvancedQuery comes to mind) that provides this functionality?

[gforcada]

@idgserpro have you tried to escape them? i.e \( ?

[idgserpro]

Yeah, create a https://github.com/collective/minimalplone4 installation. Add a Document called (TEST) and try to search for ( or \(: nothing is shown and you get the following traceback:

2016-04-25 20:37:39 ERROR Zope.SiteErrorLog 1461627459.920.432373919937 http://localhost:8080/Plone/livesearch_reply
Traceback (innermost last):
  Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 138, in publish
  Module ZPublisher.mapply, line 77, in mapply
  Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 48, in call_object
  Module Products.CMFCore.FSPythonScript, line 127, in __call__
  Module Shared.DC.Scripts.Bindings, line 322, in __call__
  Module Shared.DC.Scripts.Bindings, line 359, in _bindAndExec
  Module Products.PythonScripts.PythonScript, line 344, in _exec
  Module script, line 76, in livesearch_reply
   - <FSPythonScript at /Plone/livesearch_reply>
   - Line 76
  Module AccessControl.ZopeGuards, line 369, in guarded_apply
  Module AccessControl.ZopeGuards, line 391, in builtin_guarded_apply
  Module Products.CMFPlone.CatalogTool, line 393, in searchResults
  Module Products.ZCatalog.ZCatalog, line 604, in searchResults
  Module Products.ZCatalog.Catalog, line 925, in searchResults
  Module Products.ZCatalog.Catalog, line 547, in search
  Module Products.ZCTextIndex.ZCTextIndex, line 217, in _apply_index
  Module Products.ZCTextIndex.QueryParser, line 139, in parseQuery
ParseError: Query contains only common words: u'\\"("*'

Don't know if this is a Plone or ZCTextIndex limitation.

[hvelarde]

@idgserpro what version of Plone are you using? I just tested something similar in Plone 5.0.4 and it's working:

[idgserpro]

Indeed, my bad, I didn't said which Plone version we're using: we're at 4.3.x. We'll test with 5.0.x.

[idgserpro]

@hvelarde Actually, this is not a good test. You've found the document not because of "(" in the beginning of the string, but because of "Plone" string itself (since searching for "(" is ignored).

Searching only for "(":

Searching for "(Plone"

And searching just for "P", a single string search (to show that the problem is not the size of the string itself, but with ignored characterts):

And, to test what @gforcada suggested, but now in Plone 5:

[jensens]

This is a limitation of the index implementation. You may want to open an issue at https://github.com/zopefoundation/Products.ZCTextIndex and ask over there for details if you think this is a problem.

[idgserpro]

@hvelarde a little bit late, but it worked in Plone 5 because of this https://github.com/plone/Products.CMFPlone/blob/5.1b4/Products/CMFPlone/browser/search.py#L28