Lucene query parser cannot parse wildcard queries

[rosequ]

Lucene query parser gives the following error if the query has wildcard characters in it:
'*' or '?' not allowed as first character in WildcardQuery
Ex: Cannot parse 'where is the Eldorado Casino in Reno ?': '*' or '?' not allowed as first character in WildcardQuery.

[iorixxx]

There are two options here:

• Escape the characters that are part of the query syntax using queryparser.classic.QueryParserBase#escape
• Tokenize the query string and create the Lucene Query object by your self without a query parser.