ElasticSearch - search hyphens, underscores, colons - node.js

Question

I'm connecting to an elasticsearch server via nodejs and the npm package #elastic/elasticsearch ver 8.1.0
To create the index:
const response = await client.indices.create({
index: 'foods',
body: {
mappings: {
properties: {
id: { type: 'integer' },
color: { type: 'text' },
name: { type: 'text' }
}
}
}
});
My search query:
const response = await client.search({
index: 'foods',
body: {
query: {
multi_match: {
fields: ["color", "name"],
query: 'apple:na',
type: "phrase_prefix"
}
}
}
});
This won't return anything, as elasticsearch won't search the colon (or underscores, or hyphens). If the query is simply the letter a I get the following results:
[
{
"_index": "foods",
"_type": "_doc",
"_id": "MN8Hs38B5UePBFS0feQD",
"_source": {
"id": 12,
"name": "apple:na",
"color": "red"
}
},
{
"_index": "foods",
"_type": "_doc",
"_id": "euAHs38B5UePBFS0fQEj",
"_source": {
"id": 13,
"name": "apple:euro",
"color": "red"
}
}
]

Answer 1

As you know, text fields are analyzed by standard analyzer if you don't specify the analyzer, I think in your case, if you don't want to change and configure the advance custom analyzer which works on several special characters (hyphen, underscore etc), you can simply use the same query but on .keyword field of your text fields.
Search query
{
"query": {
"multi_match": {
"fields": [
"color.keyword", // Note `.keyword` field
"name.keyword"
],
"query": "apple",
"type": "bool_prefix"
}
}
}
Search results
"hits": [
{
"_index": "71994544",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 1.0,
"_source": {
"id": 12,
"name": "apple:na",
"color": "red"
}
},
{
"_index": "71994544",
"_id": "2",
"_score": 1.0,
"_source": {
"id": 13,
"name": "apple:euro",
"color": "red"
}
}
]
if you provide entire apple:na it produces single search result
{
"query": {
"multi_match": {
"fields": [
"color.keyword",
"name.keyword"
],
"query": "apple:na",
"type": "bool_prefix"
}
}
}
Search result
"hits": [
{
"_index": "71994544",
"_id": "1",
"_score": 1.0,
"_source": {
"id": 12,
"name": "apple:na",
"color": "red"
}
}
]
Hope this helps.