Does not match non-negated prhases, with "+", "?" or "!" operator as first token

[nomoteticus]

I am trying to match a short phrase where the token is not negated.
Fake - should match
Kinda fake - should match
Not fake - should not match
Not really fake - should not match

So I am trying to put the negation as an optional token at the beginning of the matcher.
I tried with the ? operator and + operator, also tried with the ! operator (with IN instead of NOT_IN). Nothing works

How to reproduce the behaviour

pattern_o =
[{"LEMMA":{"NOT_IN":['not','no']},"OP":"+"},
{"DEP":"ROOT",
"LEMMA":{"IN":['fake','false']}}]

Result(for o1):
Fake - does not match (should match)
Kinda fake - matches (ok)
Not fake - does not match (ok)
Not really fake - matches (should not match)

pattern_o2 =
[{"LEMMA":{"NOT_IN":['not','no']},"OP":"?"},
{"DEP":"ROOT",
"LEMMA":{"IN":['fake','false']}}]
pattern_o3 =
[{"LEMMA":{"IN":['not','no']},"OP":"!"},
{"DEP":"ROOT",
"LEMMA":{"IN":['fake','false']}}]

Result (for o2 and o3):
Fake - matches (ok)
Kinda fake - matches (ok)
Not fake - matches (should not match)
Not really fake - matches (should not match)

Your Environment

• Operating System: Ubuntu 18.10
• Python Version Used: 3.8.2
• spaCy Version Used: 2.2.4
• Environment Information:

[adrianeboyd]

I think the problem is some confusion about the definition of the quantifiers. ! in particular can cause some confusion and I think the docs could be improved a bit here.

{"OP": "!"} matches exactly one negated token and won't match if no token is present in that position in the pattern. It can't be used to match 0 tokens.

{"OP": "?"} can match 0 or 1 tokens, so you're see some matches on part of the text, like just the word fake rather than the whole text. If you only want matches that cover the whole text, you'll have to filter the matches (the on_match callback is an easy place to do this).