OrchardCMS/OrchardCore · error · ArgumentException

Missing value in match phrase query

Error message

Missing value in match phrase query

What it means

MatchPhraseQueryProvider.CreateQuery supports an object form for match_phrase queries that requires a "value" property. If the object under the field name lacks "value", no phrase can be tokenized and the provider throws this ArgumentException.

Solutions

  1. Add the required "value" string property: {"title": {"value": "quick fox", "slop": 2}}.
  2. Check for key typos (exactly "value").
  3. Validate the object contains a non-empty string "value" before calling CreateQuery.

Example fix

// before
{"title": {"slop": 2}}
// after
{"title": {"value": "quick brown fox", "slop": 2}}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (query.Value.ValueKind == JsonValueKind.Object && !query.Value.TryGetProperty("value", out _))
    throw new ArgumentException("match_phrase query object requires a 'value' property");

Type guard

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

Try / catch

try { var query = provider.CreateQuery(context, queryJson); }
catch (ArgumentException ex) when (ex.Message.Contains("Missing value"))
{ return BadRequest("Match phrase query requires { \"value\": \"phrase text\" }."); }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling CreateQuery with a query like {"title": {"slop": 2}} — an object missing the required "value" key.

Common situations: Hand-written query JSON with typos in the value key; programmatically built queries that set only options like slop or analyzer; template rendering that dropped the value.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of OrchardCMS/OrchardCore@4306c0717f (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/61dbe3a1697b9ca8. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/OrchardCore/OrchardCore.Lucene.Core/QueryProviders/MatchPhraseQueryProvider.cs:33

        }

        var first = query.First();

        var phraseQuery = new PhraseQuery();
        JsonNode value;

        switch (first.Value.GetValueKind())
        {
            case JsonValueKind.String:
                value = first.Value;
                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));
        }

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