Expert Search Help
Expert Search Help
Use the expert search to make full use of the
Verity Search '97 Information Server's query
capabilities. You can limit your search to
certain metadata fields and/or the document bodies.
By default, all zones (document bodies and all
metadata fields) are searched.
- Cautions
- Search examples
- Search help
- Your query is expanded to display highlights in the
items that are returned in the results list. Long queries
result in very long expanded queries, which are truncated
by either Verity or the Web server. You may choose to
include the URL in the results display to see the results
without highlights (and therefore avoiding truncation by
Verity or the Web server.)
- Specifying incomplete dates (for example 1999-04 instead of 1999-04-15)
results in the date being expanded by Verity to a complete date (1999-04-01).
- All zones (document bodies and metadata fields)
are searched by default. To limit your search to
some metadata fields, construct your query accordingly.
For example, help <IN> TI would
search the metadata field TI for the
string help and stemmed variations such as helps and helping.
help would search all fields and the document bodies for the
string help and stemmed variations such as helps and helping.
- Hint! Your expanded query shows up on the top
of the results page. You can copy your expanded query (everything except
the outer double quotes) to the Expert Search, refine it as desired,
and submit it. You could save favorite Expert Search queries
in a text file, keeping them available for future use.
Search Term Finds Pages That Contain
----------- ------------------------
meet The string meet and
stemmed variations, such as meets and
meeting
formula The string formula and
stemmed variations, such as formulas and
formulae
"meet" The word meet
"formula" The word formula
"S&L" The strings S&L, S & L, and S L (always
enclose words like S&L in double quotation
marks)
<CASE> NOW The string NOW in upper case
repetitive stress injury The phrase repetitive stress injury
zoo* Words beginning with the string zoo
fl??ss Words beginning with fl and ending with ss
with any two characters in between
<TYPO> receive Words similar to receive. Similar words have
characters inserted, deleted, or transposed.
crab OR lobster OR shrimp Any of the words crab, lobster, or shrimp
bank AND loan AND business All of the words bank, loan, and business
bank, loan, business Any of the words bank, loan, and business.
The more instances of these words in a
page, the higher it appears in the results
list.
bank NOT river The word bank but not the word river
HTML <NEAR> publishing The word HTML close to the word publishing
HTML <PARAGRAPH> publishing The word HTML in the same paragraph as the
word publishing
HTML <SENTENCE> publishing The word HTML in the same sentence as the
word publishing
(grammy) <IN> TI The string and stemmed variations of
grammy in the TI field
TI <CONTAINS> grammy The string grammy in the TI field
TI <MATCHES> grammy The entire TI field consists of
grammy
TI <STARTS> grammy The TI field starts with grammy
TI <ENDS> grammy The TI field ends with grammy
TI <SUBSTRING> gram The TI field contains string gram
(Same as CONTAINS?)
either/or proposition The phrase either/or proposition
rick\'s cafe The phrase rick's cafe
c:\\games The string c:\games
swim OR bike AND run Stemmed variations of bike and run on
the same page or stemmed variations of
swim
(swim OR bike) AND run Stemmed variations of swim or bike
and stemmed variations of run
((swim OR bike) AND run) Stemmed variations of swim or bike
OR walk and stemmed variations of run on the
same page or stemmed variations of walk
date = 1997-03-23 Date field equals 1997-03-23
date < 1997-03-23 Date is before 1997-03-23
date <= 1997-03-23 Date is less than or equal to 1997-03-23
date > 1997-03-23 Date is after 1997-03-23
date >= 1997-03-23 Date is greater than or equal to 1997-03-23
Note that this only works for date fields,
not text.
- Enter your search terms in lower case, for example:
rose
The search engine will find both upper and lower case instances
and stemmed variations of your search term.
However, if you are looking for pages about someone named Rose,
enter the name with an initial capital letter:
Rose
To make the search more
precise, enclose the word in double quotation marks:
"Rose"
If case is important, such as when searching for abbreviations or
acronyms, use the case modifier and enter the search term in upper case:
<CASE> NIH
- Enclose terms in double quotation marks if you want the search engine to take them literally.
For example, the following query finds pages that
match only the word meet:
"meet"
Always use double quotation marks to enclose terms that include unusual
characters like the ampersand in S&L. The Verity search engine
automatically expands the search to include variations of the term with and
without the unusual character. For example, this query finds pages that
match S&L, S & L, and S L:
"S&L"
- Search for phrases by entering the words separated by spaces.
To find pages about repetitive stress injury,
enter this query:
repetitive stress injury
- Note: The words AND, OR, and NOT are always treated as Verity Query
Language operators unless they are enclosed within double quotation marks.
recycle "and" reuse
- Expand your searches by linking your search term with OR.
The search engine will find pages that contain at least one of your search terms. For example, if you want to retrieve
documents concerning seafood, enter this query:
crab OR lobster OR shrimp
You may find documents that match crab, but not lobster or shrimp. The
pages may also contain more than one term.
- Narrow your searches by linking your search terms with AND.
The search engine will find pages that contain all of your search terms.
If any of the search terms is not contained in a document, that document does
not appear in the results list. For example, if you are interested in business
loans you can issue the query:
bank AND loan AND business
The ACCRUE operator finds pages that match any terms in the query. When
the ACCRUE operator is used, the Verity search engine calculates the
number of times that the terms appear in the document. The more
instances found, the higher the document appears in the results list.
The syntax for the ACCRUE operator is a sequence of search terms
separated by commas. For example:
bank, loan, business
- Exclude pages that are not relevant to your search by preceding the search
term with NOT.
For example, if you are looking for documents
about financial institutions and a search for the term bank produces a
results list with documents relating to river banks as well, you can exclude
those documents by issuing the following query:
bank NOT river
- You can use wildcard characters if you are not sure of the spelling of your
search term to expand your search. Asterisks (*) substitute for a string of
characters of any length.
zoop*
finds pages that match zoopraxiscope, as well as pages that
match terms like zoophyte and zooplasty.
The question mark is useful to substitute for characters in a particular
position in a term. For example, if you are searching for a document
referring to someone named Fleiss but you are not sure if the name is
spelled Fleiss or Fliess, use this query to find both:
fl??ss
- The TYPO operator can be useful if you are searching through documents
that have been scanned using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software,
which sometimes misreads words from the input document. The TYPO operator
performs "approximate pattern matching" to identify words similar to the
query term. The similar words can have characters inserted, deleted, or
transposed.
For example, the following string finds pages that match either the word
receive or the word recieve
<TYPO> receive
By default, the TYPO operator matches words with up to two character
insertions, character deletions, or transpositions in any combination.
The above sample query would find not only receive and recieve,
but also
receipt (the letters "v" and "e" have been replaced by "p" and "t"),
deceive (the letter "r" has been replaced by the letter "d"), and decieve
(the letter "r" has been replaced by the letter "d" and the letters "e"
and "i" have been transposed).
The TYPO operator is also a good way to search through collections that
contain documents written either in US or UK English.
For example,
<TYPO> behavior
finds pages that match either the word behavior or the word
behaviour.
- You can retrieve documents that contain search terms in close proximity
to each other.
The NEAR operator finds pages matching specified search terms within
close proximity to each other. The closer the search terms are to each other,
the higher the document appears in the results list. For example, to find
pages that contain HTML and publishing within close proximity of each
other, use this query:
HTML <NEAR> publishing
The SENTENCE and PARAGRAPH operators are used to specify a search
within a sentence and paragraph. The syntax for using these operators is
similar. For example, to find pages that contain HTML and publishing within
the same paragraph, use this query:
HTML <PARAGRAPH> publishing
- Precedence rules: In general, the Verity Search Engine reads your query
from right to left,
processing each search string and operator action in turn to produce a
results list of matches. In the Verity Query Language, the AND operator takes
precedence over the
OR operator. Search strings linked by the AND operator are processed
before search strings linked by the OR operator. The following example is
interpreted to mean: Find pages that match bike and run, or pages that
match swim.
swim OR bike AND run
To ensure that the OR operator is interpreted first, you can enclose the
search strings linked by the OR operator in parentheses as a nested query.
(swim OR bike) AND run
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