Basic Search Principles and Rules
Contents:
For simple searches, it is easiest to type a few words conforming to
the principles and rules listed below:
-
Spaces (AND operator). When you separate
multiple words with spaces, the spaces are interpreted as an AND operator
as explained below. In other words, entering New York City has
the same effect as entering New AND York AND City.
-
AND operator. When you enter words separated
by the word "AND," a document will only be found if all of the words
you specified are contained somewhere in its index entry. For example,
if you enter New AND York AND City as your search criteria, you
will find "New York City Subways," "City Subways of New York," and "City
of York's New Plaza." (For clarity, some people make a habit of enclosing
the AND operator with angle brackets like this: New <AND> York <AND>
City.)
-
Commas, (AND operator). When you enter words
separated by commas (or commas plus spaces),
a document will only be found if all of the words you specified
are contained somewhere in its index entry. (In technical terms,
commas are treated as Boolean AND operators.)
-
Search phrases (quotation marks). When
you enclose multiple words between quotation marks, you create a search
phrase. A document will only be found if all of those words
in that exact sequence are contained somewhere in its index entry.
For example, if you enter the phrase "New York City" as your search
criteria, you will find "New York City Subways," but not "City Subways
of New York."
-
Exact searches. Anything enclosed in double-quote
marks is searched for exactly as-is. For example, if you enter "Atchison,
Topeka, and Santa Fe" as your search criteria, only documents that
have that exact string of letters and punctuation somewhere in their index
entries will be listed. In other words, the commas and the word and
are treated as elements to search for rather than as operators.
-
Boolean operators. In technical terminology,
Netscape Compass Server uses standard Boolean operators such as <and>,
<or>, <not>, and so forth.
-
Partial words. You can search for combinations
of letters, numbers, and common characters regardless of whether or not
they form a full, correctly spelled word.
-
Reserved words. When entered in the search
box, the words:
are treated as special reserved words that Netscape Compass Server
interprets as operators that tell it how it should conduct the search rather
than words to be searched for. This is true no matter how they are capitalized,
not, Not, and NOT are all treated the same. If you
want to include one of these reserved words in your search you must enclose
the phrase in double-quote marks. For example, the criteria "truth
or consequences" treats the word or as part of the phrase you
are searching for rather than instructing the server to search for either
the word truth or the word consequences.
Reserved characters. When entered in the
search box, the characters:
are treated as special reserved characters that Netscape Compass
Server interprets as instructions about how it should conduct the search
rather than words to be searched for. See Search Syntax
for information on how to use these reserved characters. If you want to
search for these characters, you must enclose them in double-quote marks
as part of a phrase.
Capitalization. Capitalization does not count
in a search. You can enter Upper or lower case letters (or even all CAPITALS)
in the search box and Netscape Compass Server will find all documents matching
your criteria regardless of whether or not the letters are capitalized.
(If you want a case-sensitive search, you can force the server to take
capitalization into account by using the <case> operator as
explained in Search Syntax.
Dates. The following principles apply when
searching by date (before, after, etc.):
are all acceptable for September.
Separators. You can use standard numerical date
punctuation such as 1/15/97, 1-15-97, and 1.15.97.
Element order. Numerical dates must be entered
in month-day-year order. For example, 1-9-97 represents January
9th.
Day-month-year order. To use dates in day-month-year order,
you must spell out (or abreviate) the month. For example, 1 sep 97 for
September 1st.
For more complex searches, use:
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Corporation.