The search engine uses Lucene/Solr.

Standard search mode

The standard search mode uses "qt=dismax" mode, which is a very simplified syntax. The syntax is described here DisMaaxQParserPlugin

Advanced search mode

Advanced mode (if enabled) allows searching by various different fields. To search for a specific field value use the following syntax: fieldname:value

Search terms can be combined. The default operator is AND. Use a leading "-" sign to reject results containing the term. The wildcard meta-character is "*". Use double-quotes to embed spaces in values.

The searchable database includes the following fields:

  • from - the sender, e.g. from:infra*
  • to - the list of recipients, e.g. to:commons
  • subject - the subject line of the message, e.g. subject:"New wiki created:"
  • body - the body of the message
  • message-id - the unique message id, e.g. message-id:abcd1234@apache.org
  • project - the name of the project, or role, e.g. project:httpd, project:tomcat, project:members
  • listname - the name of the list, e.g. listname:private, listname:cvs

Note that the project-listname values are displayed at the top left of each result.