Search Engine Help References

Query Operators: A Reference

The following table describes some commonly used operators and provides examples of how to use each one. All are relevance ranked except where explicitly noted.

Operator 	Description					Examples

AND 		Adds mandatory criteria to the search.		Antarctica AND mountain climb
		Finds documents that have all of the
		specified words.				Finds only documents containing both
								Antarctica and mountain climb plus all
								the stemmed variants, such as mountain
								climbing.

<CONTAINS>	Finds documents containing the			Title <CONTAINS> higher profit
		specified words in a document field. The
		words must be in the exact same			Finds documents containing the phrase
		sequential and contiguous order.		higher profit in the title. Ignores documents
								with profits higher in the title
		You can use wildcards. Only
		alphanumeric values.

		Does not rank documents for relevance.

<ENDS> 		Finds documents in which a document		Title <ENDS> draft
		field ends with a certain string of
		characters.					Finds documents with titles ending in
								draft.
		Does not rank documents for relevance.

equals (=) 	Finds documents in which a document		Created = 6-30-96
		field matches a specific date or numeric
		value.						Finds documents created on June 30, 1996.

greater than (>)Finds documents in which a document		Created > 6-30-96
		field is greater than a specific date or
		numeric value.					Finds documents created after June 30, 1996.

greater than or	Finds documents in which a document		Created >= 6-30-96
equal to (>=)	field is greater than or equal to a specific
		date or numeric value.				Finds documents created on or after June30, 1996.

less than (<) 	Finds documents in which a document		Created < 6-30-96
		field is less than a specific date or
		numeric value.					Finds documents created before June 30,
								1996.

less than or	Finds documents in which a document		Created <= 6-30-96
equal to (<=)	field is less than or equal to a specific
		date or numeric value.				Finds documents created on or before June
								30, 1996.

<MATCHES> 	Finds documents in which a string in a		<MATCHES> employee
		document field matches the character
		string you specify.				Finds documents containing employee or
								any of its stemmed variants such as
								employees.
		Ignores documents that contain partial
		matches.

		Does not rank documents for relevance.

<NEAR> 		Finds documents that contain the		stock <NEAR≶ purchase
		specified words. The closer the terms are
		to each other in the document, the		Finds any document containing both stock
		higher the document's score.			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		stock <NEAR/N> purchase
		specified words are within N number of
		words from each other. N can be an		Finds documents containing the phrases
		integer up to 1000. Also ranks the		stock purchase and purchase stock.
		documents for relevance based on the
		words' proximity to each other.			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		surf AND NOT beach
		specific word or phrase.
								Finds documents containing the word surf
		Note: You can use NOT to modify			but not the word beach.
		the OR or the AND operator.

OR 		Adds optional criteria to the search.		apples OR oranges
		Finds any document that contains at
		least one of the search values.			Finds documents containing either apples
								or oranges.

<PHRASE> 	Finds documents that contain the		<PHRASE> (rise "and" fall)
		specified phrase. A phrase is a grouping
		of two or more words that occur in a		Finds documents that include the entire
		specific order.					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		Title <STARTS> Corp
		field starts with a certain string of
		characters.					Finds documents with titles starting with
								Corp, such as Corporate and Corporation..
		Does not rank documents for relevance.

<STEM>		Finds documents that contain the		<STEM> plan
(English only)	specified word and its variants.
		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	<SUBSTRING> employ
		string in a document field matches the
		character string you specify.			Finds documents that can match on all or
		part of employ, so it can succeed with ploy.
		
		Similar to <MATCHES>, but can match
		on a partial string.				Note: This works with literals only. If you
								input web*, the asterisk does not work as
		Does not work with wildcards.			a wildcard, so the search succeeds only
								with the exact "web*" string.
		Does not rank documents for relevance.

<WILDCARD> 	Finds documents that contain the		<WILDCARD> plan*
		wildcard characters in the search string.
		You can use this to get words that have		Finds documents that contain plan, plane,
		some similar spellings but which would		and planet as well as any word that begins
		not be found by stemming the word.		with plan, such as planned, plans, and
		planetopolis.

		Some characters, such as * and ?,
		automatically indicate a wildcard-based		See the next section for more details and
		search, so you don't have to include the	examples.
		word <WILDCARD>.

<WORD> 		Finds documents that contain the		<WORD> theme
		specified word.
								Finds documents that contain theme,
								thematic, themes, and other words that
								stem from theme.

Using Wildcards

You can use wildcards to obtain special results. For example, you can find documents that contain words that have similar spellings but are not stemmed variants. For example, plan stems into plans and planning but not plane or planet. With wildcards, you can find all of these words.

Some characters, such as * and ?, automatically indicate a wildcard-based search and do not require you to use the <WILDCARD>operator as part of the expression.

Character 	Description

      * 	Specifies 0 or more alphanumeric characters. For example, air* finds		
		documents that contain air, airline, and airhead.

		Cannot use this wildcard as the first character in an expression.

		This wildcard is ignored in a set of ([ ]) or in an alternative pattern ({ }).

		With this wildcard, the  operator is implicit.

      ?		 Specifies a single alphanumeric character, although you can use more
		than one ? to indicate multiple characters. For example, ?at finds
		documents that contain cat and hat, while ??at finds documents that
		contain that and chat.

		This wildcard is ignored in a set of ([ ]) or in an alternative pattern ({ }).

		With this wildcard, the  operator is implicit.

     {} 	An alternative pattern that specifies a series of patterns, one for each
		pattern separated by commas. For example,
				 'Chat{s, ting, ty}'
		finds documents that contain chats, chatting, and chatty.

		You must enclose the entire string in back quotes and you cannot have
		any embedded spaces.

     [ ] 	A set that specifies a series of characters that can be
		used to find a match. For example,
				 '[chp]at'
		finds documents that contain cat, hat, and pat.

		You must enclose the entire string in back quotes and you cannot have
		any embedded spaces.

      ^ 	Specifies one or more characters to exclude from a set. For example,
				 'C[^io]t' 
		finds documents that contain cat and cut,
		but not cot.

		The caret (^) must be the first character after the left bracket.

      -		Specifies a range of characters in a set. For example, 
				 'Ch[a-j]t' 
		finds documents that contain any four-letter word from
		chat to chjt.