---
schema_version: "1"
id: 6eec194eb55f9233fe5ee5ba89d80e5ceb09dbb52daf21037393b4046360bbfa
title: SOSL Operation Limitations
collection: legacydeveloper
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/legacydeveloper/current/en-us/api_tooling/reference_objects_sosl_limits.md
canonical_url: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_tooling.meta/api_tooling/reference_objects_sosl_limits.htm
source_site: developer.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 2b1c1b56dd7311b9b8d6536c95ea982dcb928c91bc5f5af4b7356a0a8b9040ed
description: Two Tooling API objects, EntityDefinition and FieldDefinition, have some SOSL limitations. ExternalString and MetadataComponentDependency (Beta) don’t support SOSL searches.
---
# SOSL Operation Limitations

Two Tooling API objects, EntityDefinition and FieldDefinition, have some SOSL limitations. ExternalString and MetadataComponentDependency (Beta) don’t support SOSL searches.

## EntityDefinition and FieldDefinition

EntityDefinition and FieldDefinition support the following SOSL operations:

FIND

- Literal text search, for example:
    
    FIND {account}
- Text search with a single wildcard, for example:
    
    FIND {account\*} RETURNING EntityDefinition
    FIND {account?} RETURNING FieldDefinition
    FIND {account\*fax} RETURNING EntityDefintion
    FIND {account?fax} RETURNING FieldDefinition
    
    The wildcard can’t be the first character in a search term, consistent with search behavior for all objects.
- Quotation marks are supported.
- The escape character \\ (slash) is supported. For example, to search for the character \* (asterisk), include the escape character:
    
    FIND {account\\\*}
    RETURNING EntityDefinition

RETURNING is required.

FIND {MyString} 
RETURNING FieldDefinition

- - Multiple object type names are supported.
        
        ...RETURNING EntityDefinition, FieldDefinition
    - A field list is supported.
        
         ... RETURNING EntityDefinition (MasterLabel, QualifiedApiName)

WHERE is supported, though logical operators are not.

LIMIT is supported.

Example:

FIND {account\*} 
RETURNING FieldDefinition (MasterLabel, NamespacePrefix 
WHERE EntityDefinitionId='Account') 

All other [SOSL operations](https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.264.0.soql_sosl.meta/soql_sosl/sforce_api_calls_sosl_about.htm) are unsupported. If you include an unsupported expression in a search term, the expression is ignored, except for the following, which cause an error:

- Multiple wildcards in a search term
- Unsupported operators OR or NOT
- Parentheses for grouping operators
- Morphological tokenization
- An asterisk wildcard isn’t added at the end of single-character searches.

## ExternalString

ExternalString doesn’t support SOSL searches.

## MetadataComponentDependency (Beta)

MetadataComponentDependency is a virtual entity, so it doesn’t support SOSL searches.