How does one search within JIRA, to look for when a specific Text value is missing from a field...?

[Douglas Smith-Burns]

I'd like to list out all the Features whom are missing a space dash space Parentheses [ - ( ] value. 

Is there a way to use advanced search to list all of something say Features, who's Summary Title is missing space dash space parentheses as all my Features are to have a Suffix string that starts with Space Dash Space Parentheses, and when it's missing - i need to put it into place.

I ask because it seems that the "Failure to contain" or "Does not contain" option is not supported within JIRA.

[Payne · Accepted solution]

I don't know that you can perform a search like that within Jira, but a work-around that you may find useful is to export your issues (bearing in mind the default maximum number of 1000 issues, so perhaps use some JQL to narrow down your list) to CSV, open with Excel, and then add a column with a formula like:

=ISNUMBER(SEARCH(" - (",E1))

and then sort by that column.

A bit of a work, but if it's a one-time or every-once-in-a-while task, it may be feasible.

[Douglas Smith-Burns]

Yep I was thinking about that as well; however we are already over 1000, from the initial launch/start, as such the JIRA export process is effectively useless with only a 1000 maximum under search results.  I'll try your idea to see if I can narrow down the search results to get around this 1000 Maximum results issue, for a smaller results set.

[John Funk]

Hi Douglas - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Only certain fields give you the ability to text searches. When you are looking for the features, which field are are doing a search on? Summary?

Are you on Server or Cloud?

[Douglas Smith-Burns]

I believe we are on a Cloud installation, and indeed I was attempting to search, but didn't specify a specific field I wanted to search upon, However my intent was to search Summary.  The Issue I was finding was now to structure a query or search criteria that it would tell me when something I was looking for was missing from the Summary Field.  Not knowing the syntax for "is missing" or "Doesn't include", is what I perceive as my first impediment.  If however the system is incapable of "does not include" types of query - that would be good to know.

[John Funk]

Try something like:

Summary !~ "\" - (  \""

[Douglas Smith-Burns]

Yep - tried that, but alas - it won't parse "not" type references; which is also noted within the JIRA's list of things search cannot do.