Search help
Search terms and phrases
You can search for single terms, multiple terms and phrases. A single term is a single word such as 'food' or 'report'. A phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes such as 'annual report'.
Search operators
Multiple terms can be combined together with Boolean operators to form a more complex query. Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. The search engine supports AND, '+', OR, NOT and '-' as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS):
- 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.
- The '+' or required operator requires that the term after the '+' symbol exist somewhere in a the field of a single document.
- 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.
- The '-' or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the '-' symbol.
- 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.
Wildcard search
The search engine supports single and multiple character wildcard searches within single terms (but not within phrase queries).
- To perform a single character wildcard search use the '?' symbol.
- To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the '*' symbol.
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
Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.
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