# How can I search enum field type values with 'search\_fields'?

**URL:** <https://community.swiftype.com/t/how-can-i-search-enum-field-type-values-with-search-fields/150>\
**Category:** Setup & Indexing\
**Created:** [April 8, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://community.swiftype.com/t/how-can-i-search-enum-field-type-values-with-search-fields/150 "2016-04-08T22:02:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/swiftype/original/1X/fd652d1735c60057fa71c371375511028f9a1832.png) [@system](https://community.swiftype.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://community.swiftype.com/t/how-can-i-search-enum-field-type-values-with-search-fields/150/1 "2016-04-08T22:02:59Z")

</div>

> **When using the API for a search, you can include the `search_fields` parameter to specify additional fields to search for.**

> **However, I’m finding that when including a field with the data type of enum, it’s not getting matched. Is this supported? For reference, the enum field I added was just an array of strings.**

It is possible to match enum fields once they are added to the **`search_fields`** parameter.

What you might be running into is that enums will only return exact matches. If you pass in a quoted query string with the exact enum value, it will work.

If it’s desired to have general matching for these strings, you likely want to change to using the `string` field type. We have more detail on these data types in the following documentation: [API Overview | Swiftype Documentation](https://swiftype.com/documentation/overview#field_types)