diff --git a/solr/CHANGES.txt b/solr/CHANGES.txt
index 917f1909e4b..e89851966c2 100644
--- a/solr/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/solr/CHANGES.txt
@@ -121,6 +121,8 @@ New Features
 * SOLR-2338: Add support for using <similarity/> in a schema's fieldType,
   for customizing scoring on a per-field basis. (hossman, yonik, rmuir)
   
+* SOLR-2335: New 'field("...")' function syntax for refering to complex 
+  field names (containing whitespace or special characters) in functions.
 
 Optimizations
 ----------------------
diff --git a/solr/src/java/org/apache/solr/search/ValueSourceParser.java b/solr/src/java/org/apache/solr/search/ValueSourceParser.java
index 5b7834b46ea..71ac10c39e3 100755
--- a/solr/src/java/org/apache/solr/search/ValueSourceParser.java
+++ b/solr/src/java/org/apache/solr/search/ValueSourceParser.java
@@ -335,6 +335,15 @@ public abstract class ValueSourceParser implements NamedListInitializedPlugin {
         return new StringDistanceFunction(str1, str2, dist);
       }
     });
+    addParser("field", new ValueSourceParser() {
+      @Override
+      public ValueSource parse(FunctionQParser fp) throws ParseException {
+
+        String fieldName = fp.parseArg();
+        SchemaField f = fp.getReq().getSchema().getField(fieldName);
+        return f.getType().getValueSource(f, fp);
+      }
+    });
 
     addParser(new DoubleParser("rad") {
       @Override
diff --git a/solr/src/test/org/apache/solr/search/function/TestFunctionQuery.java b/solr/src/test/org/apache/solr/search/function/TestFunctionQuery.java
index edb36a2833a..49e6335a740 100755
--- a/solr/src/test/org/apache/solr/search/function/TestFunctionQuery.java
+++ b/solr/src/test/org/apache/solr/search/function/TestFunctionQuery.java
@@ -71,16 +71,14 @@ public class TestFunctionQuery extends SolrTestCaseJ4 {
 
   // replace \0 with the field name and create a parseable string 
   public String func(String field, String template) {
-    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("_val_:\"");
+    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("{!func}");
     for (char ch : template.toCharArray()) {
       if (ch=='\0') {
         sb.append(field);
         continue;
       }
-      if (ch=='"') sb.append('\\');
       sb.append(ch);
     }
-    sb.append('"');
     return sb.toString();
   }
 
@@ -520,5 +518,38 @@ public class TestFunctionQuery extends SolrTestCaseJ4 {
     dofunc("atan2(.25,.5)", Math.atan2(.25,.5));
   }
 
+  /**
+   * verify that both the field("...") value source parser as well as 
+   * ExternalFileField work with esoteric field names
+   */
+  @Test
+  public void testExternalFieldValueSourceParser() {
+
+    String field = "CoMpleX \" fieldName _extf";
+    String fieldAsFunc = "field(\"CoMpleX \\\" fieldName _extf\")";
+
+    float[] ids = {100,-4,0,10,25,5,77,23,55,-78,-45,-24,63,78,94,22,34,54321,261,-627};
+
+    createIndex(null,ids);
+
+    // Unsorted field, largest first
+    makeExternalFile(field, "54321=543210\n0=-999\n25=250","UTF-8");
+    // test identity (straight field value)
+    singleTest(fieldAsFunc, "\0", 54321, 543210, 0,-999, 25,250, 100, 1);
+    Object orig = FileFloatSource.onlyForTesting;
+    singleTest(fieldAsFunc, "log(\0)");
+    // make sure the values were cached
+    assertTrue(orig == FileFloatSource.onlyForTesting);
+    singleTest(fieldAsFunc, "sqrt(\0)");
+    assertTrue(orig == FileFloatSource.onlyForTesting);
+
+    makeExternalFile(fieldAsFunc, "0=1","UTF-8");
+    assertU(adoc("id", "10000")); // will get same reader if no index change
+    assertU(commit());   
+    singleTest(fieldAsFunc, "sqrt(\0)");
+    assertTrue(orig != FileFloatSource.onlyForTesting);
+
+    purgeFieldCache(FieldCache.DEFAULT);   // avoid FC insanity    
+  }
 
 }