NumberRangePrefixTreeStrategy with setPointsOnly(true): an Intersects query for a date or number unit coarser than full precision (a year, month, day, ...) matches no documents

Finding LFV-612Area: spatial-extras / prefix-tree strategies (NumberRangePrefixTreeStrategy over DateRangePrefixTree or a custom NumberRangePrefixTree; the pointsOnly TermQuery shortcut in RecursivePrefixTreeStrategy.makeGridShapeIntersectsQuery)Priority: mediumImpact: silent wrong resultsNovelty: new

Finding page for LFV-612

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 full-precision dates such as 2014-10-23T21:22:33.159 with a NumberRangePrefixTreeStrategy over DateRangePrefixTree on which you called setPointsOnly(true), and search makeQuery(new SpatialArgs(SpatialOperation.Intersects, tree.parseShape("2014-10"))). You expect the documents from October 2014, because each point lies inside that month, IsWithin with the same shape and the same query with pointsOnly=false find them, and the LUCENE-7845 CHANGES entry describes this pointsOnly TermQuery shortcut as an optimization for 'a simple date interval (e.g. 1 month)'. Instead RecursivePrefixTreeStrategy.makeGridShapeIntersectsQuery builds a TermQuery on the month's token plus the leaf byte, a term that pointsOnly indexing at full precision, the normal path, never writes (each point stores every coarser level only as a non-leaf prefix term), so the query matches nothing; the same happens for a year, day, hour, minute or second and for a range that normalizes to one unit.

The test shows that NumberRangePrefixTreeStrategy with setPointsOnly(true) returns no hits for an Intersects query on a date unit coarser than full precision (here the month 2014-10).

Expected vs actual

One document indexed at 2014-10-23T21:22:33.159; Intersects('2014-10'): expected 1 hit, actual 0 (expected:<1> but was:<0>), with -ea and -da.

Files

• src/org/apache/lucene/spatial/prefix/TestNumberRangePointsOnlyUnitIntersects.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/spatial-extras/build/libs/lucene-spatial-extras-$V.jar
CP=$CP:$LUCENE/lucene/spatial3d/build/libs/lucene-spatial3d-$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.spatial.prefix.TestNumberRangePointsOnlyUnitIntersects

The module(s) spatial-extras also need their third-party runtime jars; ./gradlew -p lucene/<module> dependencies lists them.

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 2026-11-04. AI-assisted; not yet triaged by a human Lucene committer. Feedback: open an issue in lucene-ai-bug-hunt.