Content Component 26.2
Content Component Help

# HyphenChars

A list of the characters (in unencoded UTF-8) to use as hyphens.

Set `HyphenChars` to `NONE` if you do not want to use any characters as hyphens.

The Content component treats hyphenated words specially when it indexes them, and indexes both the subparts and the whole hyphenated word. For example, if `HyphenChars` is set to `-` (the default value), Content indexes `second-hand` as second, hand, and secondhand, and you can query all three terms.

At query time, Content tokenizes the hyphenated term as the whole term and individual subterms, all separated by the configured DefaultQueryOperator. For example, if the DefaultQueryOperator is OR (the default value), a query for `second-hand` becomes `secondhand OR second OR hand`.

NOTE: If you change the DefaultQueryOperator, you might not get expected query results for hyphenated terms.

The separate parts of a hyphenated term (such as second and hand) are available only for basic keyword searches, and they do not match proximity expressions or field-restricted searches. For example, if a document contains the phrase `second-hand car`, a keyword search for `hand` matches the document, but an exact phrase search for `"hand car"` does not.

In most situations, OpenText recommends that you set `HyphenChars` to `NONE`, and use the hyphen as a separator (for example, set AugmentSeparators to `-`). For more information, refer to Knowledge Discovery Expert.

Type: | String
Default: | `-`
Required: | No
Configuration Section: | LanguageTypes or `MyLanguage`
Example: | `HyphenChars=-/.`
See Also: | AugmentSeparators TangibleCharacters

NOTE: If you change this setting after you have indexed content into the Content component, the new setting applies only to new content, and the server logs a warning. To clear the warning and ensure that your change applies to all your content, you must initialize your index and reindex the content.

Copyright 2026 Open Text
Version 26.2 | Last updated April 2026

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Product: Knowledge Discovery Content Component 26.2

Topic Title: HyphenChars