12030/fix/title search requires phrase match of all words

[AKADaniel-hub]

Closes #12030

fix: search requires phrase match of all words

Technical

The error is related to how Solr search handles phrase queries. Currently, using title:"query" matches the exact phrase, requiring terms to appear in that specific order.

To allow the title to contain terms regardless of their order (e.g., "harry" AND "potter"), I updated the logic to use grouped terms: title:(term1 term2).

Changes:

Modified marshalBookSearchQuery to use the title:(...) format for Solr.

Updated initFromUrlParams to properly handle the removal of the title: prefix and parentheses when parsing the URL.

Testing

In the right corner search bar, choose Title.

Search for "responsive design".

    Original behavior: Returns "No books directly matched your search" (looking for exact phrase).

    After fix: Returns the book Responsive Web Design.

Screenshot

Local test Screenshot:

old

after

Production

old:

expected:

Stakeholders

@cdrini

---

Please let me know if i went to right direction to address the issue or if there are any improvements I should make.

[mekarpeles]

Thanks for contributing to Open Library, @AKADaniel-hub! Welcome — this appears to be your first PR to the project.

🤖 Copilot has been assigned for an initial review.

@cdrini is assigned to this PR and currently has:

• 4 open PR(s) of equal or higher priority to review first

PR triage checklist (maintainers / Pam)

• PR description — not empty; explains what the change does and how to verify it
• References an issue — PR body contains a #NNN reference
  • Linked issue is triaged — has a Priority: * label (not just Needs: Triage)
  • Linked issue is assigned — has at least one assignee
• Commit history clean — no WIP/fixup/conflict noise; commit messages are meaningful
• CI passing — no failing check-runs
• Test cases present — if the change touches substantive logic, test coverage exists or is explained
• Proof of testing — PR body includes a description of what was tested, a screenshot, or a video

Note

This comment was automatically generated by Pam, Open Library's Project AI Manager, on behalf of @mekarpeles. Pam is designed to provide status visibility, perform basic project management functions and relevant codebase research, and provide actionable feedback so contributors aren't left waiting.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR updates the header “Title” search facet query marshaling to avoid Solr phrase-query behavior (order-dependent matches) by emitting grouped term queries (e.g. title:(term1 term2)) and adjusting URL parsing/tests accordingly.

Changes:

• Update SearchBar.marshalBookSearchQuery to emit title:(...) instead of title:"...".
• Update SearchBar.initFromUrlParams (and unit tests) to strip the title: prefix and surrounding parentheses.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

File	Description
openlibrary/plugins/openlibrary/js/SearchBar.js	Changes title-facet query marshaling and URL query parsing for the search bar.
tests/unit/js/SearchBar.test.js	Updates unit tests to reflect the new title:(...) query format.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

tests/unit/js/SearchBar.test.js:121

• The new title:(...) marshaling behavior should be covered for inputs containing lucene special characters / boolean operators (e.g. C++ Primer, E-mail, A AND B) to ensure the generated query remains Solr-safe after removing the protective quotes.

    describe('marshalBookSearchQuery', () => {
        const fn = SearchBar.marshalBookSearchQuery;
        test('Empty string', () => {
            expect(fn('')).toBe('');
        });

        test('Adds title prefix to plain strings', () => {
            expect(fn('Harry Potter')).toBe('title:(Harry Potter)');
        });

        test('Does not add title prefix to lucene-style queries', () => {
            expect(fn('author:"Harry Potter"')).toBe('author:"Harry Potter"');
            expect(fn('"Harry Potter"')).toBe('"Harry Potter"');
        });

[Copilot]

initFromUrlParams now only strips title:(...) and will leave legacy title:"..." queries showing quotes in the input (e.g. title:"Harry Potter" becomes "Harry Potter"). Since existing shared URLs may still use the quoted form, consider supporting both wrappers (parentheses and quotes) when q starts with the title: field.

[Copilot]

The title-prefix stripping logic checks q.indexOf('title:') !== -1 and then does q.replace('title:', ''), which will also strip title: if it appears mid-query (or inside another field name), not just as a leading field. To avoid mangling arbitrary lucene queries in the URL, restrict this to cases where the trimmed query starts with title: (and ideally handle optional whitespace after the colon).

[Copilot]

marshalBookSearchQuery now interpolates the raw user input inside title:(...) without escaping lucene/solr special characters. This is a behavioral regression vs the previous quoted form for inputs like C++ Primer, E-mail, M*A*S*H, or A AND B, which can be parsed as operators/wildcards and may error or change meaning. Before wrapping, escape special characters (and lowercase boolean operators) similarly to openlibrary/solr/query_utils.py::fully_escape_query.

[Copilot]

Formatting: if (q.startsWith('(') && q.endsWith(')')){ is missing spaces before { and around - 1 compared to the surrounding style in this file; this will likely be flagged by linting and hurts readability.

Suggested change

	if (q.startsWith('(') && q.endsWith(')')){
	q = q.substring(1, q.length -1);
	if (q.startsWith('(') && q.endsWith(')')) {
	q = q.substring(1, q.length - 1);

[Copilot]

The updated initFromUrlParams test no longer covers the legacy title:"..." URL format. Add a test case asserting that title:"Harry Potter" (and title: "Harry") are still parsed into plain input text, so we don't regress existing shared URLs.

Suggested change

	expect(sb.$input.val()).toBe('Harry');
	expect(sb.$input.val()).toBe('Harry');
	sb.initFromUrlParams({q: 'title:"Harry Potter"', facet: 'title'});
	expect(sb.$input.val()).toBe('Harry Potter');
	sb.initFromUrlParams({q: 'title: "Harry"', facet: 'title'});
	expect(sb.$input.val()).toBe('Harry');