fix: Update backend normalization to match search normalization logic (#7603)

Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com>

mealie/alembic/versions/2026-05-10-18.44.53_c7427796f7b6_more_aggresive_normalization.py

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+"""more aggresive normalization
+
+Revision ID: c7427796f7b6
+Revises: 4395a04f7784
+Create Date: 2026-05-10 18:44:53.159775
+
+"""
+
+from sqlalchemy import orm, text
+
+from alembic import op
+from mealie.db.models._model_base import SqlAlchemyBase
+
+
+# revision identifiers, used by Alembic.
+revision = "c7427796f7b6"
+down_revision: str | None = "4395a04f7784"
+branch_labels: str | tuple[str, ...] | None = None
+depends_on: str | tuple[str, ...] | None = None
+
+
+def _update_table(session: orm.Session, table: str, columns: list[str], source_columns: list[str]) -> None:
+    """Re-normalize all rows in `table`, reading raw values from `source_columns` and writing to `columns`."""
+    rows = session.execute(text(f"SELECT id, {', '.join(source_columns)} FROM {table}")).fetchall()
+    for row in rows:
+        id_ = row[0]
+        updates = {}
+        for col, src in zip(columns, source_columns, strict=True):
+            val = row[source_columns.index(src) + 1]
+            updates[col] = SqlAlchemyBase.normalize(val) if val is not None else None
+
+        set_clause = ", ".join(f"{col} = :{col}" for col in columns)
+        session.execute(text(f"UPDATE {table} SET {set_clause} WHERE id = :id"), {**updates, "id": id_})
+    session.commit()
+
+
+def update_normalization() -> None:
+    bind = op.get_bind()
+    session = orm.Session(bind=bind)
+
+    # recipes: name_normalized, description_normalized
+    _update_table(session, "recipes", ["name_normalized", "description_normalized"], ["name", "description"])
+
+    # recipe ingredients: note_normalized, original_text_normalized
+    _update_table(
+        session,
+        "recipes_ingredients",
+        ["note_normalized", "original_text_normalized"],
+        ["note", "original_text"],
+    )
+
+    # ingredient units: name, plural_name, abbreviation, plural_abbreviation
+    _update_table(
+        session,
+        "ingredient_units",
+        ["name_normalized", "plural_name_normalized", "abbreviation_normalized", "plural_abbreviation_normalized"],
+        ["name", "plural_name", "abbreviation", "plural_abbreviation"],
+    )
+
+    # ingredient foods: name, plural_name
+    _update_table(session, "ingredient_foods", ["name_normalized", "plural_name_normalized"], ["name", "plural_name"])
+
+    # unit aliases
+    _update_table(session, "ingredient_units_aliases", ["name_normalized"], ["name"])
+
+    # food aliases
+    _update_table(session, "ingredient_foods_aliases", ["name_normalized"], ["name"])
+
+
+def upgrade():
+    # no table changes, this is a data migration
+    update_normalization()
+
+
+def downgrade():
+    pass

mealie/db/models/_model_base.py

@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import string
 from datetime import datetime
 
 from sqlalchemy import Integer
@@ -6,6 +7,12 @@ from text_unidecode import unidecode
 
 from ._model_utils.datetime import NaiveDateTime, get_utc_now
 
+# Punctuation characters replaced with spaces during text normalization.
+# Mirrors SearchFilter in query_search.py: string.punctuation minus apostrophe and
+# double-quote, which are reserved for quoted literal searches.
+NORMALIZE_PUNCTUATION = string.punctuation.replace("'", "").replace('"', "")
+_NORMALIZE_PUNCTUATION_TABLE = str.maketrans(NORMALIZE_PUNCTUATION, " " * len(NORMALIZE_PUNCTUATION))
+
 
 class SqlAlchemyBase(DeclarativeBase):
     id: Mapped[int] = mapped_column(Integer, primary_key=True)
@@ -20,7 +27,7 @@ class SqlAlchemyBase(DeclarativeBase):
     def normalize(cls, val: str) -> str:
         # We cap the length to 255 to prevent indexes from being too long; see:
         # https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/btree.html
-        return unidecode(val).lower().strip()[:255]
+        return unidecode(val).translate(_NORMALIZE_PUNCTUATION_TABLE).lower().strip()[:255]
 
 
 class BaseMixins:

mealie/schema/response/query_search.py

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ from sqlalchemy import Select
 from sqlalchemy.orm import Session
 from text_unidecode import unidecode
 
-from ...db.models._model_base import SqlAlchemyBase
+from ...db.models._model_base import NORMALIZE_PUNCTUATION, SqlAlchemyBase
 from .._mealie import MealieModel, SearchType
 
 
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ class SearchFilter:
     3. remove special characters from each non-literal search string
     """
 
-    punctuation = r"!\#$%&()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\\]^_`{|}~"  # string.punctuation with ' & " removed
+    punctuation = NORMALIZE_PUNCTUATION
     quoted_regex = re.compile(r"""(["'])(?:(?=(\\?))\2.)*?\1""")
     remove_quotes_regex = re.compile(r"""['"](.*)['"]""")