MongoDB like operator not working properly

[Serkan80]

Describe the bug
I have the following Books in my collection:

• Book(title=Harry Potter, author=JK Rowling)
• Book(title=IT, author=Stephen King)

And when I do the following query:

Book.list("title like ?1", format("/.*%s.*/i, "harr"));

I see the following on my console printed out:

{'title':{'$regex':'/.*harr.*/i'}} 

And I get 0 result back.

Expected behavior
I expect 1 result.

Environment (please complete the following information):

• Linux lenovo 5.4.0-7626-generic Arc - make it possible to get interceptor bindings from #30158816988320.04~bbe668a-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 29 21:00:02 UTC x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux.
• openjdk version "11.0.7" 2020-04-14
  OpenJDK Runtime Environment AdoptOpenJDK (build 11.0.7+10)
  OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM AdoptOpenJDK (build 11.0.7+10, mixed mode)
• Quarkus 1.4.2.Final
• Apache Maven 3.6.3

Additional context
The problem lies in the generated query.
If I write the following query, then it works:

Book.list(format("{title: {$regex: /.*%s.*/i}}", title));

Notice the quotes !

See also:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61732717/mongodb-panache-queries-not-returning-any-result/61733115

[quarkusbot]

/cc @loicmathieu

[loicmathieu]

@Serkan80 as I understand it, using like generates an incorrect query with single quotes around the $regex operator.

Book.list("title like ?1", format("/.*%s.*/i, "harr"));

Generates

{'title':{'$regex':'/.*harr.*/i'}} 

Where it should be

{'title':{$regex:'/.*harr.*/i'}} 

[Serkan80]

@Serkan80 as I understand it, using like generates an incorrect query with single quotes around the $regex operator.

Book.list("title like ?1", format("/.*%s.*/i, "harr"));

Generates

{'title':{'$regex':'/.*harr.*/i'}} 

Where it should be

{'title':{$regex:'/.*harr.*/i'}} 

No not correct, it should be either like this:
{title: {$regex: /.*harr.*/i}}
or like this:
{'title': {$regex: /.*harr.*/i}}

No single quotes on the value of the regex (/.harr./i).

[loicmathieu]

@Serkan80 escaping with single quotes the operator is not the issue.
The issue is with the regex itself. You can define regex in two ways in MongoDB:

• Using a regular string => '.*harr.*' in this case (but you will be missing the i option for ignore case)
• Using a JavaScript regex => /.*harr.*/ with this form you can add options to your regexes

We automatically escape the value of the parameter so you can ony use regular String for the moment.

[loicmathieu]

So, to fix this we need, for the like operator, to check if the value of the parameter is a JavaScript regex and don't escape in this case.

[Serkan80]

So, to fix this we need, for the like operator, to check if the value of the parameter is a JavaScript regex and don't escape in this case.

Ok, then you need to document this well, because people have to know that you can use 2 types of regex. And only the JS one support case-insensitivity (and other options).

It would be nice to do it just 1 way with the options support.

For example:

list("title like ?1", ".*myQuery.*", Options.IGNORECASE, Options.OtherOption, etc.); 

And when you see that there are options provided, you just generare the JS variant, otherwise the default/current one.

[loicmathieu]

people have to know that you can use 2 types of regex

I guess that if people try to use one form or the other it's because they know they exist ;)

Unfortunatly, we cannot easily add options to the list method as you requested as the varags is for the parameters ...

So the best I can propose is to check if it's a JavaScript regex and don't escape in this case.