fts5 syntax error when using punctuation

[clausjuhl]

Hi Simon

I get a syntax error when using punctuation or special characters in a fulltext search (using fts5). I created the virtual table using sqlite-utils' "enable-fts"-command.

The same error appears on Niche Museums https://www.niche-museums.com/browse/search?q=park., but works fine in most of your other datasette-examples, e.g. register-of-members-interests https://register-of-members-interests.datasettes.com/regmem-98dc8b7/items?_search=mins.

What am I doing wrong? Many thanks!

[simonw]

I've not yet been able to figure out what the escaping rule are for FTS5 queries.

If we figure out how those work maybe we can bundle them as a custom function?

select ... where docs_fts match fts_escape(:search)

[simonw]

https://stackoverflow.com/a/43756146 says that an escaping mechanism that works is this one:

select * from blah where term match '"bacon" "and" "eggs"'

So split on whitespace and then encapsulate each search term in double quotes.