Documentation Source Text

<ul><li> Using a MATCH operator in the WHERE clause of a SELECT statement, or
    <li> Using an equals ("=") operator in the WHERE clause of a SELECT statement, or
    <li> using the [table-valued function] syntax.
</ul>

<p>If using the MATCH or = operators, the expression to the left of the MATCH
   operator is usually the name of the FTS5 table (the exception is when 
   [FTS5 column filters | specifying a column-filter]). The expression on the right
   must be a text value specifying the term to search for. For the table-valued
   function syntax, the term to search for is specified as the first table argument.
   For example:

<codeblock>
  <i>-- Query for all rows that contain at least once instance of the term</i>
  <i>-- "fts5" (in any column). The following three queries are equivalent.</i>

<query>     := <query> AND <query>
<query>     := <query> OR <query>
<query>     := <query> NOT <query>
<colspec>   := colname
<colspec>   := { colname1 colname2 ... }
</codeblock>

<h2 tags="FTS5 Strings">FTS5 Strings</h2>
<p>
Within an FTS expression a <b>string</b> may be specified in one of two ways:

<ul>
  <li> <p>By enclosing it in double quotes ("). Within a string, any embedded
       double quote characters may be escaped SQL-style - by adding a second
       double-quote character.

       do not currently serve any special purpose in FTS5 query expressions may
       at some point in the future be allowed in barewords or used to implement
       new query functionality. This means that queries that are currently
       syntax errors because they include such a character outside of a quoted
       string may be interpreted differently by some future version of FTS5.
</ul>

<h2 tags="FTS5 Phrases">FTS5 Phrases</h2>
<p>
FTS queries are made up of <b>phrases</b>. A phrase is an ordered list of 
one or more tokens. A string is transformed into a phrase by passing it to
the FTS table tokenizer. Two phrases can be concatenated into a single 
large phrase using the "+" operator. For example, assuming the tokenizer
module being used tokenizes the input "one.two.three" to three separate
tokens, the following three queries all specify the same phrase:

<codeblock>
  ... MATCH '"one two three"'
  ... MATCH 'one + two + three'
  ... MATCH '"one two" + three'
  ... MATCH 'one.two.three'
</codeblock>

<p>
A phrase matches a document if the document contains at least one sub-sequence
of tokens that matches the sequence of tokens that make up the phrase.

<h2 tags="FTS5 prefix queries">FTS5 Prefix Queries</h2>
<p>
If a "*" character follows a string within an FTS expression, then the final
token extracted from the string is marked as a <b>prefix token</b>. As you
might expect, a prefix token matches any document token of which it is a 
prefix. For example, the first two queries in the following block will match
any document that contains the token "one" immediately followed by the token
"two" and then any token that begins with "thr".

<codeblock>
  ... MATCH '"one two thr" * '
  ... MATCH 'one + two + thr*'
  ... MATCH '"one two thr*"'      <b>-- May not work as expected!</b>
</codeblock>

<p>The final query in the block above may not work as expected. Because the
"*" character is inside the double-quotes, it will be passed to the tokenizer,
which will likely discard it (or perhaps, depending on the specific tokenizer
in use, include it as part of the final token) instead of recognizing it as
a special FTS character.

<h2 tags="FTS5 NEAR queries">FTS5 NEAR Queries</h2>

<p>Two or more phrases may be grouped into a <b>NEAR group</b>. A NEAR group
is specified by the token "NEAR" (case sensitive) followed by an open
parenthesis character, followed by two or more whitespace separated phrases, optionally followed by a comma and the numeric parameter <i>N</i>, followed by
a close parenthesis. For example:

<codeblock>

  ... MATCH 'NEAR(a d e, 5)';                    <i>-- Does not match!</i>

  ... MATCH 'NEAR("a b c d" "b c" "e f", 4)';    <i>-- Matches!</i>
  ... MATCH 'NEAR("a b c d" "b c" "e f", 3)';    <i>-- Does not match!</i>

</codeblock>

<h2 tags="FTS5 column filters">FTS5 Column Filters</h2>

<p>
A single phrase or NEAR group may be restricted to matching text within a
specified column of the FTS table by prefixing it with the column name 
followed by a colon character. Or to a set of columns by prefixing it
with a whitespace separated list of column names enclosed in parenthesis
("curly brackets") followed by a colon character. Column names may be specified

<codeblock>
  <i>-- The following are equivalent:</i>
  ... MATCH '{a b} : ( {b c} : "hello" AND "world" )'
  ... MATCH '(b : "hello") AND ({a b} : "world")'
</codeblock>

<p>
Finally, a column filter for a single column may be specified by using
the column name as the LHS of a MATCH operator (instead of the usual
table name). For example:

<codeblock>
  <i>-- Given the following table</i>
  CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE ft USING fts5(a, b, c);

  <i>-- The following are equivalent</i>
  SELECT * FROM ft WHERE b MATCH 'uvw AND xyz';
  SELECT * FROM ft WHERE ft MATCH 'b : (uvw AND xyz)';

  <i>-- This query cannot match any rows (since all columns are filtered out): </i>
  SELECT * FROM ft WHERE b MATCH 'a : xyz';
</codeblock>

<h2 tags="FTS5 boolean operators">FTS5 Boolean Operators</h2>

<p>
Phrases and NEAR groups may be arranged into expressions using <b>boolean
operators</b>. In order of precedence, from highest (tightest grouping) to
lowest (loosest grouping), the operators are:

<table striped=1>
  <tr><th>Operator <th>Function

<h3 nonumber> Changes to SELECT statements </h3>

<ol>
  <li> <p>The "docid" alias does not exist. Applications must use "rowid"
          instead.

  <li> <p>The behaviour of queries when a column-filter is specified both as
          part of the FTS query and by using a column as the LHS of a MATCH
          operator is slightly different. For a table with columns "a" and "b"
          and a query similar to:
<codeblock>
   ... a MATCH 'b: string'
</codeblock>
       <p>FTS3/4 searches for matches in column "b". However, FTS5 always
          returns zero rows, as results are first filtered for column "b", then
          for column "a", leaving no results. In other words, in FTS3/4 the
          inner filter overrides the outer, in FTS5 both filters are applied.

  <li> <p>The FTS query syntax (right hand side of the MATCH operator) has
          changed in some ways. The FTS5 syntax is quite close to the FTS4
          "enhanced syntax". The main difference is that FTS5 is fussier 
          about unrecognized punctuation characters and similar within query
          strings. Most queries that work with FTS3/4 should also work with
          FTS5, and those that do not should return parse errors.
</ol>









<h3 nonumber> Auxiliary Function Changes </h3>

<p> FTS5 has no matchinfo() or offsets() function, and the snippet() function
is not as fully-featured as in FTS3/4. However, since FTS5 does provide 
an API allowing applications to create [custom auxiliary functions], any
required functionality may be implemented within the application code.