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FIND {SearchQuery}

Use the required FIND clause of a SOSL query to specify the word or phrase to search for. A search query includes the literal word or phrase and can also include wildcards and logical operators (AND, OR, and AND NOT).

A search query includes:

The literal text (single word or a phrase) to search for
Optionally, Wildcards
Optionally, logical Operators, including grouping parentheses

Searches are evaluated from left to right and use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding. Text searches are case-insensitive. For example, searches for Customer, customer, and CUSTOMER return the same results.

You can’t enter special types of text expressions (such as macros, functions, or regular expressions) that are evaluated at run time in the FIND clause.

Surround the SearchQuery with curly brackets to distinguish the search expression from other clauses in the text search.

Note

Search Terms

A SearchQuery can contain:

Single words, such as test or hello
Phrases that include words and spaces surrounded by double quotes, such as "john smith"

The search engine breaks down all searchable text into smaller pieces, or tokens, and stores them in the search index. When you search, your results include matches on the tokens in your search term.

Searches with multiple words separated by spaces are split into separate tokens. For example, the search acme inc. is split into the tokens acme and inc.

Morphological tokenization ensures that searches in East Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai (CJKT), which don’t include spaces between words, return accurate search results.

Example

Consider the problem of indexing the term “Tokyo Prefecture” and a subsequent search for Kyoto in Japanese.

Index	Search
東京都 Tokyo Prefecture	京都 Kyoto

Morphological tokenization segments the term 東京都 (Tokyo Prefecture) into two tokens.

東京

Tokyo

都

Prefecture

This form of tokenization ensures that a search for 京都 (Kyoto) returns only results that include 京都 (Kyoto) and not 東京都 (Tokyo Prefecture).

Wildcards

You can specify the following wildcard characters to match text patterns in your search:

Wildcard	Description
*	Asterisks match zero or more characters at the middle or end (not the beginning) of your search term. For example, a search for `john` finds items that start with john, such as, john, johnson, or johnny. A search for `mi meyers` finds items with mike meyers or michael meyers. If you are searching for a literal asterisk in a word or phrase, then escape the asterisk (precede it with the `\` character).
?	Question marks match only one character in the middle or end (not the beginning) of your search term. For example, a search for `jo?n` finds items with the term john or joan but not jon or johan.

Wildcard

Description

Asterisks match zero or more characters at the middle or end (not the beginning) of your search term. For example, a search for john* finds items that start with john, such as, john, johnson, or johnny. A search for mi* meyers finds items with mike meyers or michael meyers. If you are searching for a literal asterisk in a word or phrase, then escape the asterisk (precede it with the \ character).

Question marks match only one character in the middle or end (not the beginning) of your search term. For example, a search for jo?n finds items with the term john or joan but not jon or johan.

When using wildcards, consider the following notes:

Wildcards take on the type of the preceding character. For example, aa*a matches aaaa and aabcda, but not aa2a or aa.!//a, and p?n matches pin and pan, but not p1n or p!n. Likewise, 1?3 matches 123 and 143, but not 1a3 or 1b3.
A wildcard (*) is appended at the end of single characters in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai (CJKT) searches, except in exact phrase searches.
The more focused your wildcard search, the faster the search results are returned, and the more likely the results will reflect your intention. For example, to search for all occurrences of the word prospect (or prospects, the plural form), it is more efficient to specify prospect* in the search string than to specify a less restrictive wildcard search (such as prosp*) that could return extraneous matches (such as prosperity).
Tailor your searches to find all variations of a word. For example, to find property and properties, you would specify propert*.
Punctuation is indexed. To find * or ? inside a phrase, you must enclose your search string in quotation marks and you must escape the special character. For example, "where are you\?" finds the phrase where are you?. The escape character (\) is required in order for this search to work correctly.

Operators

Combine multiple words with logic and grouping by using operators to form a more complex query. You can use the following special operators to focus your text search. Operator support is case-insensitive.

Operator	Description
`" "`	Use quotation marks around search terms to find an exact phrase match. This can be especially useful when searching for text with punctuation. For example, `"acme.com"` finds items that contain the exact text `acme.com`. A search for `"monday meeting"` finds items that contain the exact phrase `monday meeting`. To include the words “and,” “or,” and “and not” in your search results, surround those words in double quotes. Otherwise they’re interpreted as the corresponding operators.
`AND`	Finds items that match all of the search terms. For example, `john AND smith` finds items with both the word `john` and the word `smith`. In most cases if an operator isn't specified, `AND` is the default operator. When searching articles, documents, and solutions, `AND` must be specified because `OR` is the default operator.
`OR`	Finds items with at least one of the search terms. For example, `john OR smith` finds items with either `john` or `smith`, or both words.
`AND NOT`	Finds items that do not contain the search term. For example, `john AND NOT smith` finds items that have the word `john` but not the word `smith`.
( )	Use parentheses around search terms in conjunction with logical operators to group search terms. For example, you can search for: `("Bob" and "Jones") OR ("Sally" and "Smith")`—searches for either Bob Jones or Sally Smith. `("Bob") and ("Jones" OR "Thomas") and Sally Smith`—searches for documents that contain Bob Jones and Sally Smith or Bob Thomas and Sally Smith.

SearchQuery Character Limits

If the SearchQuery string is longer than 10,000 characters, no result rows are returned. If SearchQuery is longer than 4,000 characters, any logical operators are removed. For example, the AND operator in a statement with a SearchQuery that’s 4,001 characters will default to the OR operator, which could return more results than expected.

Search Order

When you combine multiple operators in a search string, they are evaluated in this order:

() (parentheses)
AND and AND NOT (evaluated from right to left)
OR

These examples show how search strings are evaluated:

Searching for...	Is the same as...	Finds items with the words...
`acme AND california AND NOT meeting`	`acme AND (california AND NOT meeting)`	acme and california but not meeting
`acme AND NOT california AND meeting`	`acme AND NOT (california AND meeting)`	acme but not with both california and meeting
`acme AND california OR meeting`	`(acme AND california) OR meeting`	acme and california and items with the word meeting
`acme AND (california OR meeting)`	`acme AND (california OR meeting)`	acme and california and items with the words acme and meeting

Reserved Characters

The following characters are reserved:

1? & | ! { } [ ] ( ) ^ ~ * : \ " ' + -

Reserved characters, if specified in a text search, must be escaped (preceded by the backslash \ character) in order to be properly interpreted. An error occurs if you do not precede reserved characters with a backslash. This is true even if the SearchQuery is enclosed in double quotes.

For example, to search for the following text:

1{1+1}:2

insert a backslash before each reserved character:

1\{1\+1\}\:2

Example FIND Clauses

Type of Search	Example(s)
Single term examples	`FIND {MyProspect}` `FIND {mylogin@mycompany.com}` `FIND {FIND}` `FIND {IN}` `FIND {RETURNING}` `FIND {LIMIT}`
Single phrase	`FIND {John Smith}`
Term OR Term	`FIND {MyProspect OR MyCompany}`
Term AND Term	`FIND {MyProspect AND MyCompany}`
Term AND Phrase	`FIND {MyProspect AND "John Smith"}`
Term OR Phrase	`FIND {MyProspect OR "John Smith"}`
Complex query using AND/OR	`FIND {MyProspect AND "John Smith" OR MyCompany}` `FIND {MyProspect AND ("John Smith" OR MyCompany)}`
Complex query using AND NOT	`FIND {MyProspect AND NOT MyCompany}`
Wildcard search	`FIND {My*}`
Escape sequences	`FIND {Why not\?}`
Invalid or incomplete phrase (will not succeed)	`FIND {"John Smith}`

FIND Clauses in Apex

The syntax of the FIND clause in Apex differs from the syntax of the FIND clause in the SOAP API and REST API :

In Apex, the value of the FIND clause is demarcated with single quotes. For example:
1FIND 'map*' IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Account (Id, Name), Contact, Opportunity, Lead
In the Force.com API, the value of the FIND clause is demarcated with braces. For example:
1FIND {map*} IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Account (Id, Name), Contact, Opportunity, Lead

The Force.com Apex Code Developer's Guide has more information about using SOSL and SOQL with Apex.

Force.com SOQL and SOSL Reference