Help Search

Introduction

In order to distinguish a simple search from a user-defined search using the Query Syntax as described below, these special query expressions have to be marked by a leading # followed by blank.

Example (further examples see below):

# query expression

Terms

A query is broken up into terms and operators. There are two types of terms: Single Terms and Phrases.

A Single Term is a single word such as "test" or "hello".

A Phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes such as "hello dolly".

Multiple terms can be combined together with Boolean operators to form a more complex query (see below).

Single term:

# lighting

Phrase:

# "Automotive lighting"

Fields

You can search in the metadata of documents. When performing such a search you have to indicate the name of the field followed by a colon ":" and then the term you are looking for.

The following fields are accessible: subtitle, description, keywordlist, content. If you want to find the document entitled "The Right Way" which contains the text "don't go this way", you can enter:

# title:"The Right Way" AND content:go

or

# title:"Do it right" AND right

Since content is the default field, the field indicator is not required.

Note: The field is only valid for the term that it directly precedes, so the query

# title:Do it right

Will only find "Do" in the title field. It will find "it" and "right" in the default field (in this case the content field).

Term Modifiers

It is possible to modify query terms to provide a wide range of searching options.

Wildcard Searches

Single and multiple character wildcard searches are supported.

To perform a single character wildcard search use the "?" symbol.

To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the "*" symbol.

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match that with the single character replaced. For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search:

# te?t

Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for test, tests or tester, you can use the search:

# test*

You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.

# te*t

Fuzzy Searches

To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a Single word Term. For example to search for a term similar in spelling to "roam" use the fuzzy search:

# roam~

This search will find terms like foam and roams.

An additional (optional) parameter can specify the required similarity. The value is between 0 and 1, with a value closer to 1 only terms with a higher similarity will be matched. For example:

# roam~0.8

The default that is used if the parameter is not given is 0.5.

Proximity Searches

It is possible to find words are a specific distance away. To do a proximity search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a Phrase. For example to search for a "product" and "recommendation" within 10 words of each other in a document use the search:

# "product recommendation"~10

Range Searches

Range queries allow you to match documents whose field(s) values are between the lower and upper bound specified by the range query. You can specify whether the lower and upper bound are included in the search range. Inclusive range queries are denoted by square brackets. Exclusive range queries are denoted by curly brackets. Sorting is done lexicographically.

# subtitle:{Dulux TO Osram}

This will find all documents whose subtitles are between Dulux and Osram, but not including Dulux and Osram.

Inclusive range queries are denoted by square brackets [ ]. Exclusive range queries are denoted by curly brackets { }.

Boosting a Term

It is possible to get the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, "^", symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.

Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for

# Home lighting

and you want the term "lighting" to be more relevant boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You would type:

# Home lighting^4

This will make documents with the term lighting appear more relevant. You can also boost Phrase Terms as in the example:

# "Home lighting"^4 "Automotive lighting"

By default, the boost factor is 1. Although the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (e.g. 0.2)

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. The following operators are supported: AND, "+", OR, NOT and "-" as Boolean operators(Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).

The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in a document. This is equivalent to a union using sets. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR.

To search for documents that contain either "Home lighting" or just "lighting" use the query:

# "Home lighting" lighting

or

# "Home lighting" OR lighting

AND

The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.

To search for documents that contain "Home lighting" and "Automotive lighting" use the query:

# "Home lighting" AND "Automotive lighting"

+

The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in a the field of a single document.

To search for documents that must contain "lighting" and may contain "automotive" use the query:

# +lighting automotive

NOT

The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. This is equivalent to a difference using sets. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT.

To search for documents that contain "Home lighting" but not "Automotive lighting" use the query:

# "Home lighting" NOT "Automotive lighting"

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:

# NOT "Automotive lighting"

-

The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.

To search for documents that contain "Home lighting" but not "Automotive lighting" use the query:

# "jakarta apache" -"Automotive lighting"

Grouping

It is possible to use parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.

Use the following search to find documents containing the term "product" and one of the terms "October" or "November":

# (October OR November) AND product

This eliminates any confusion and makes sure you that product must exist and either term October or November may exist.

Field Grouping

It is possible to use parentheses to group multiple clauses to a single field.

To find documents with the terms "product overview November" and "recommendation" in their titles, use the following search:

# subtitle:(+"produkt overview November" +recommendation)