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The decompoundQuery parameter controls splitting compound words in the query into their component parts. Decompounding is available for these queryLanguages: German, Dutch, Finnish, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian.

Usage

  • If true (default), compound words are split into multiple parts to improve recall. For example, the Dutch query "schoolboeken" (school books) will match "school", "boeken", and "schoolboeken".
  • If false, compound words are matched as-is.
    This is useful when you want to preserve precise matches for product names, legal terms, or brand names.
    For example, "gartenstühle" (garden chairs in German) would only match "gartenstühle".
  • Decompounding doesn’t apply to decomposed Unicode characters with combining marks. For example, "Gartenstühle" (using u + combining ◌̈) will not be split, but "Gartenstühle" (single ü character) will be.
  • To control decompounding for individual attributes, see decompoundedAttributes.

Examples

Current API clients

Enable splitting compound words by default

IndexSettings settings = new IndexSettings
{
  DecompoundQuery = true
};

index.SetSettings(settings);

// Asynchronous
await index.SetSettings(settings);
var result = index.Search(new Query("query string")
{
  DecoumpoundQuery = true
});

Enable splitting compound words by default

IndexSettings settings = new IndexSettings
{
  DecompoundQuery = true
};

index.SetSettings(settings);

// Asynchronous
await index.SetSettings(settings);

Enable splitting compound words for the current search

var result = index.Search(new Query("query string")
{
  DecoumpoundQuery = true
});
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