OrchardCMS/OrchardCore · error · ArgumentException

Invalid wildcard query

Error message

Invalid wildcard query

What it means

This is the fall-through case of MatchPhraseQueryProvider.CreateQuery. The default branch throws an ArgumentException whose message misleadingly says 'Invalid wildcard query' (a copy-paste from the wildcard provider), but it fires for match_phrase queries whose JSON value is neither a string nor the supported object form.

Solutions

1. Provide the phrase as a JSON string: {"title": "quick brown fox"}.
2. Or use the object form: {"title": {"value": "quick brown fox", "slop": 1}}.
3. Ignore the 'wildcard' wording in the message; fix the match_phrase value shape instead.

Example fix

// before
{"title": ["quick brown fox"]}
// after
{"title": "quick brown fox"}

var k = query.Value.ValueKind;
if (k is not (JsonValueKind.String or JsonValueKind.Object))
    throw new ArgumentException("match_phrase query value must be a string or an object with 'value'");

static bool IsMatchPhraseShape(JsonElement el) =>
    el.ValueKind == JsonValueKind.String ||
    (el.ValueKind == JsonValueKind.Object && el.TryGetProperty("value", out var v) && v.ValueKind == JsonValueKind.String);

try { var query = provider.CreateQuery(context, queryJson); }
catch (ArgumentException ex) { return BadRequest($"Invalid match_phrase query: {ex.Message}"); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling CreateQuery with a match_phrase query like {"title": ["quick fox"]} or {"title": 42} — any value type other than string or object with "value".

Common situations: Arrays of phrases supplied as a list; numeric or boolean values unquoted; confusion between the string and object query forms; the wrong error text also misleads debugging.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

• Missing value in match phrase query
• Query DSL requires a [query] property
• Invalid property ' ' in boolean query
• Invalid value in boolean query
• Missing value in fuzzy query

AI-assisted analysis of OrchardCMS/OrchardCore@4306c0717f (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bf0d287d9c28114a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/OrchardCore/OrchardCore.Lucene.Core/QueryProviders/MatchPhraseQueryProvider.cs:44

                break;

            case JsonValueKind.Object:
                var obj = first.Value.AsObject();

                if (!obj.TryGetPropertyValue("value", out value))
                {
                    throw new ArgumentException("Missing value in match phrase query");
                }

                // TODO: read "analyzer" property

                if (obj.TryGetPropertyValue("slop", out var slop))
                {
                    phraseQuery.Slop = slop.Value<int>();
                }

                break;
            default: throw new ArgumentException("Invalid wildcard query");
        }

        foreach (var term in LuceneQueryService.Tokenize(first.Key, value.Value<string>(), context.DefaultAnalyzer))
        {
            phraseQuery.Add(new Term(first.Key, term));
        }

        return phraseQuery;
    }
}

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