Search operators are special words that enable you to refine or expand
the scope of your search. Note that with the exception of AND, OR, and
NOT, all operators must be enclosed in brackets <>. If you wish
to treat an operator as literal text and search for it as a regular word,
simply enclose it in quotation marks or parentheses.
Search Operators
| Operator |
Description |
Examples |
AND
| Adds mandatory criteria to the search. Finds documents that have
all of the specified words. |
Antarctica AND mountain climb
Finds only documents containing both Antarctica and mountain
climb plus all the stemmed variants, such as mountain climbing.
|
<CONTAINS>
|
Finds documents containing the specified words in a document field.
The words must be in the exact same sequential and contiguous order.
You can use wildcards. Only alphanumeric values.
Does not rank documents for relevance.
|
Title <CONTAINS> higher profit
Finds documents containing the phrase higher profit in the
title. Ignores documents with profits higher in the title.
|
<ENDS>
|
Finds documents in which a document field ends with a certain string
of characters.
Does not rank documents for relevance.
|
Title <ENDS> draft
Finds documents with titles ending in draft.
|
<MATCHES>
|
Finds documents in which a string in a document field matches the
character string you specify.
Ignores documents that contain partial matches.
Does not rank documents for relevance.
|
<MATCHES> employee
Finds documents containing employee or any of its stemmed
variants such as employees.
|
<NEAR>
|
Finds documents that contain the specified words. The closer the
terms are to each other in the document, the higher the document's
score. |
stock <NEAR> purchase
Finds any document containing both stock and purchase,
but gives a higher score to a document that has stock purchase
than to one that has purchase supplies and stock up.
|
<NEAR/N>
|
Finds documents in which two or more specified words are within
N number of words from each other. N can be an integer up to 1000.
Also ranks the documents for relevance based on the words' proximity
to each other. |
stock <NEAR/1> purchase
Finds documents containing the phrases stock purchase and
purchase stock.
Ignores documents containing phrases like purchase supplies
and stock up because stock and purchase do not
appear next to each other.
When N is 2 or greater, finds documents that contain the words
within the range and gives a higher score for documents which have
the words closer together.
|
NOT
|
Finds documents that do not contain a specific word or phrase.
Note: You can use NOT to modify the OR
or the AND operator.
|
surf AND NOT beach
Finds documents containing the word surf but not the word
beach.
|
OR
|
Adds optional criteria to the search. Finds any document that contains
at least one of the search values. |
apples OR oranges
Finds documents containing either apples or oranges.
|
<PHRASE>
|
Finds documents that contain the specified phrase. A phrase is a
grouping of two or more words that occur in a specific order. |
<PHRASE> (rise "and" fall)
Finds documents that include the entire phrase rise and fall.
The and is in quotes to force the search to interpret it
as a literal, not as an operator.
|
<STARTS>
|
Finds documents in which a document field starts with a certain
string of characters.
Does not rank documents for relevance.
|
Title <STARTS> Corp
Finds documents with titles starting with Corp, such as
Corporate and Corporation..
|
| <STEM> |
Finds documents that contain the specified word and its variants. |
<STEM> plan
Finds documents that contain plan, plans, planned,
planning, and other variants with the same meaning stem.
Ignores similarly spelled words such as planet and plane
that don't come from the same stem.
|
<SUBSTRING>
|
Finds documents in which part or all of a string in a document field
matches the character string you specify.
Similar to <MATCHES>, but can match on a partial string.
Does not work with wildcards.
Does not rank documents for relevance.
|
<SUBSTRING> employ
Finds documents that can match on all or part of employ,
so it can succeed with ploy.
Note: This works with literals only. If you input web*,
the asterisk does not work as a wildcard, so the search succeeds
only with the exact "web*" string.
|
<WILDCARD>
|
Finds documents that contain the wildcard characters in the search
string. You can use this to get words that have some similar spellings
but which would not be found by stemming the word.
Some characters, such as * and ?, automatically indicate a wildcard-based
search, so you don't have to include the word <WILDCARD>.
|
<WILDCARD> plan*
Finds documents that contain plan, plane, and planet
as well as any word that begins with plan, such as planned,
plans, and planetopolis.
See the next section for more details and examples.
|
<WORD>
|
Finds documents that contain the specified word. |
<WORD> theme
Finds documents that contain theme, thematic, themes,
and other words that stem from theme.
|
