Field Specific Searching in ThinkingSphinx not working

I am trying to do field specific searching in Rails using Thinking Sphinx.

I have three tables named a,b,c with Models A,B,C.

Contents of tables: Table A,B,C

mysql> select * from a;
+----+--------+----------+
| id | name   | city     |
+----+--------+----------+
|  1 | 7-11   | Portland |
|  2 | Costco | Bend     |
|  3 | Costco | Astoria  |
+----+--------+----------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from b;
+----+--------+---------+
| id | name   | city    |
+----+--------+---------+
|  1 | 7-11   | Bend    |
|  2 | Costco | Astoria |
|  3 | Costco | Bend    |
+----+--------+---------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from c;
+----+--------+---------+
| id | name   | city    |
+----+--------+---------+
|  1 | 7-11   | Astoria |
|  2 | Costco | Astoria |
|  3 | Costco | Bend    |
+----+--------+---------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

This is what I do in my console using Application Wide Searching:

Goal: Display all 7-11's in the city of Portland

irb(main):021:0> @a = ThinkingSphinx.search "7-11 @city开发者_运维知识库 Portland", :match_mode=>:extended
=> []

I know that table A has a 7-11 with the city of Portland in it. So lets try that:

irb(main):022:0> @a = A.search "7-11 @city Portland", :match_mode=>:extended
=> []

Finding Costco with city as Astoria works.

irb(main):023:0> @a = ThinkingSphinx.search "costco @city Astoria",     :match_mode=>:extended
=> [#<B id: 2, name: "Costco", city: "Astoria">, #<A id: 3, name: "Costco", city:     "Astoria">, #<C id: 2, name: "Costco", city: "Astoria">]

Finding Costco with city as Bend works:

irb(main):023:0> @a = ThinkingSphinx.search "costco @city Astoria", :match_mode=>:extended
=> [#<B id: 2, name: "Costco", city: "Astoria">, #<A id: 3, name: "Costco", city:  "Astoria">, #<C id: 2, name: "Costco", city: "Astoria">]

I don't know why field specific searching works with text values as opposed to when a place has a name with all numbers and dashes. I have read through the documentation, and I just don't know what I am doing wrong.

This is what works:

irb(main):026:0> @a = A.search "7-11"
=> [#<A id: 1, name: "7-11", city: "Portland">]

And this doesn't

irb(main):027:0> @a = A.search "7-11 @city Portland", :match_mode=>:extended
=> []

Ah, I think I know the problem - the issue is not the city filter on Portland, but the fact that you're using a hyphen in an extended query. Does A.search 'portland return the record? And A.search '@city portland', :match_mode => :extended?

To get around this, you can use Riddle.escape to escape queries - which just puts \ in front of special characters. Also, it's worth noting that you can use :conditions to specify field-focused searches, and that automatically sets the match mode to extended.

A.search Riddle.escape('7-11'), :conditions => {:city => 'Portland'}