Solr/Lucene behaves weird with some word searches.

Question

I have Solr installed with default configuration (out of box). I have a word "alternatives" in the index. Search for any of the following gives empty results: 1. name:alterna 2. name:alterna 3. name:alterna* 4. name:*altern

Obviously, I am expecting to find that entry given any part of the word "alternatives"

Anybody with such an experience???

Answer 1

Lucene's (and Solr's) default query syntax searches for full terms. This rules out your searches number 1,2, and 4. Number 3 should have worked.

You can debug all of the cases using Solr's analysis admin screen. See also Debugging Search Application Relevance Issues.

Answer 2

I did use Admin screen to debug. #3 should have worked and it does not. Is this related to stemming feature? #3 also gives zero matches. It works for

alt*, alte*, alter*, altern* does not work for alterna*, alternat*, alternati*, alternativ* and then works for alternative* and alternatives*

Thanks