How to search for issues with an empty field (Issue Picker)?

[Paul]

Hi,

I have a field of type Issue Picker.

What is correct JQL query to find issues where my field is not populated?

Unfortunately "FIELD is Empty" doesn't work as Jira/ScriptRunner does not support searching for EMPTY values for issue picker.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

There is no way to do this I'm afraid.  It's a quirk of the search system in Jira and how it makes custom field plugins work - to enable the sub-set search for the issue picker, the code has to tell Jira the field is always populated, even when it's not (this is a terrible explanation, but I don't know how else to keep it simple)

[JeltzProstetnic]

How can we then search for issues with empty issue picker fields atm? Also a Scriptrunner Number Field doesn't seem to work in a JQL query (scriptRunnerNumberField = 0 returns all results, including such where the numer is other than zero).

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You can't.  The issue picker field does not allow for it.

I'm not sure about the number field though, I don't get that, field = 0 returns issues where it's 0 to me.

[Matthias Gruber]

Interesting. I got it to work using the following trick:

issueFunction in issueFieldMatch("", IssuePickerFieldName, "^$")

And yes, I also don't get what's wrong with the Number field. field = 0 returns issues where its 1 also. The searcher is set to Number Searcher, the template is Template Field. The code has only two exit points: return 0 at one place, return 1 at the other branch of execution.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Change the template to number, that should fix the field.

[Matthias Gruber]

Only "Number field" exists in the drop down. I am not sure I know what you mean.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

This is a Scriptrunner scripted field isn't it?  When you configure it, you get a big box for the script and then a select list for template underneath it?

[JeltzProstetnic]

Exactly. However, the template is called "Number field", not "Number". And it turns out that it usually works, but after a change of an issue which changes the number, and re-querying, the result of the query doesn't change, even though it should. Maybe some caching issue? I'll continue observing it, and when I have a working repro I'll write again.

[Duane Cronkite]

I reindexed Jira and was able to search on Empty single user picker field. Before reindexing I was unable to search.

I believe this is the correct answer.