Intervals.term(term, payloadFilter) returns non-null Weight#matches for documents in which the filter rejects every position of the term (documents the query does not match), so a BooleanQuery that excludes such a clause has no Matches for its own hits

Finding LFV-464Area: queries / intervals (PayloadFilteredTermIntervalsSource Matches API; Weight#matches consumers)Priority: lowImpact: silent wrong resultsNovelty: new

Finding page for LFV-464

AI-assisted finding, confirmed by automated checks, not yet triaged by a human Lucene committer. This site files nothing upstream.

What it shows

You index text with payloads, for example 'big|adj dog|noun' (doc 0) and 'big|adj dog|verb' (doc 1) through DelimitedPayloadTokenFilter, and query IntervalQuery(f, Intervals.term("dog", payload is 'noun')), which correctly hits only doc 0. You expect Weight#matches to be null for doc 1, which the query does not match, and non-null for doc 1 as a hit of +f:big -<that query>. Instead the payload-filtered source returns an empty but non-null MatchesIterator for every document that contains 'dog' at all, so Weight#matches reports a match for the non-hit and the BooleanQuery returns null Matches for its real hit (the default UnifiedHighlighter then leaves that hit unhighlighted, and Lucene monitor's HighlightsMatch matcher reports the non-hit as a match), while hits, counts and scores stay correct.

The test shows that Intervals.term(term, payloadFilter) gives a non-null Weight#matches for a document in which the filter rejects every position of the term, so the query does not match it (one doc, one token dog with payload verb, filter "payload is noun").

Expected vs actual

Expected Weight#matches(ctx, 0) == null (count is 0); actual: a non-null Matches (expected null, but was:<MatchesUtils$3@...>), with -ea and -da.

Files

• src/org/apache/lucene/queries/intervals/TestPayloadFilteredIntervalsMatches.java (JUnit test)

Run it

• Tested on Lucene main e1faeba08bde (2026-11-02): still reproduces.
• Tested on Lucene main 645d4fe14a20 (2026-10-28): reproduced.
• Recorded outcome of run 1 on Lucene main 645d4fe14a20: 1 test(s) run, 1 failed.
• How to read the outcome: a failing test is the finding reproducing (the failure message states expected against actual).
• Seeds: a rerun with the same seed replays the same random choices. Assertions off (-da -dsa -Dtests.asserts=false) is the production-like setting.

# Lucene checkout at the tested commit, built with: ./gradlew --no-daemon assemble   (JDK 25)
LUCENE=/path/to/lucene; V=12.0.0-SNAPSHOT
CP=$LUCENE/lucene/core/build/libs/lucene-core-$V.jar
CP=$CP:$LUCENE/lucene/codecs/build/libs/lucene-codecs-$V.jar
CP=$CP:$LUCENE/lucene/test-framework/build/libs/lucene-test-framework-$V.jar
CP=$CP:$LUCENE/lucene/queries/build/libs/lucene-queries-$V.jar
CP=$CP:randomizedtesting-runner-2.9.2.jar:junit-4.13.2.jar:hamcrest-3.0.jar   # test-framework dependencies (Maven Central)
CP=$CP:junit-platform-console-standalone-6.1.3.jar   # JUnit Platform console launcher (Maven Central)

javac -d classes -cp "$CP" $(find src -name '*.java')

# run 1: assertions on, seed DEADBEEF
java -ea -esa --add-modules jdk.incubator.vector --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED -Dtests.seed=DEADBEEF \
     -cp "classes:$CP" org.junit.platform.console.ConsoleLauncher \
     execute --select-class org.apache.lucene.queries.intervals.TestPayloadFilteredIntervalsMatches

Gradle alternative: copy the test into the matching module's src/test/ tree of the checkout and run ./gradlew -p lucene/<module> test --tests <class> -Ptests.seed=<seed> (add -Ptests.asserts=false for a run without assertions).

Feedback

Open an issue in lucene-ai-bug-hunt. Please do not open issues or pull requests in apache/lucene about this finding unless a Lucene committer agrees it should be filed.

Snapshot of 2026-11-03. AI-assisted; not yet triaged by a human Lucene committer. Feedback: open an issue in lucene-ai-bug-hunt.