How do I search for words preceded by a full stop? e.g. SomeText.TheSearchTerm

[Gerri Mills]

I am trying to search for a term in my confluence site. For example "CustomerName".

If a page contains just the word e.g. Page 1: "The CustomerName field" then the search will return it.

If a page has another word and a full stop included in that term e.g Page 2: "The Customers.CustomerName field" then search will not return that page.

I've tried "*CustomerName" but apparently a wildcard cannot be the first character in a search term according to this page https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/confluence-search-syntax/

Interestingly, the wildcards don't seem to work with full stop.

If I search for "Customers*CustomerName" or "Customers?CustomerName" Page 2 is not returned in the results for either, only if "Customers.CustomerName" is the search term

[Kishan Sharma]

Hi @Gerri Mills 

There are few alternatives to this, please refer this article which might help in your case.

[Gerri Mills]

Thank you @Kishan Sharma but they didn't work for me.

[Kishan Sharma]

I have tested this for you. Please try advanced search like below -

/.*CustomerName*./

Let me know how it goes.

[Gerri Mills]

Hi Kishan,

Thank you, I had tried that but it didn't work. Are you on confluence cloud or server? We are on cloud.

All my research is showing there is no way to search for a wildcard at the start of a phrase in confluence. 

/.*ustomerName*./

returns no results at all.

The first issue is really serious for us as we use confluence for systems documentation and it's impossible to do a search for all pages using a field name that might have a different table name. Most limitations in confluence I can find a work around, but there is none for this. 

[Kishan Sharma]

Hi Gerri,

I tested it in Server. I found that its not working in Cloud, so seems like there's no way to search for a wildcard at the start of a phrase in confluence cloud. 

[Gerri Mills]

Thank you for your help Kishan, and lucky you being on server!

[Kishan Sharma]

No problem Gerri, couldn't help much and yes, we have to live with those limitations on cloud.

[Sheng An Zhang]

Hi Gerri, I am the Product Manager on the Search platform. 

Thank you for raising this! This is something our team is looking into soon as we know that our logic for handling special characters in search is not working.

I would love to get the time to speak with you over a short zoom call if it works. This would allow me to learn more about how this affects you and your team and make sure we are solving the problem right for our customers.

[Gerri Mills]

Hi Sheng, sure we can chat on zoom - please message me with details