Entering search text
Generally:
- Search match terms in a document if they are the same word, regardless of the word form; for example, printer matches printers and installing matches install.
- Search uses the configured dictionary to identify synonyms and return documents containing those synonyms so you don't need to know the exact term used.
- Documents are returned only if they have all terms.
However, there are exceptions:
- If your search query is long, the system may return documents that do not include all the query terms. (The length of the query and number of required terms is up to the system administrator.)
- Search operators can be used to change the search behavior. The table below lists the supported search operators. Within your query, the operators cannot be combined on a single search term. You can only apply one operator to any given word or phrase; however, in the query, you can use as many operators as you like as long as each applies to a different word or phrase.
| Search operator | Description |
|---|---|
| quotation marks (" ") | If a word or phrase is enclosed in quotation marks, documents are returned by the search if they contain the exact string (case insensitive) enclosed in the quotation marks.
Punctuation is ignored but the words are not stemmed or parsed, Equivalent Terms and Related Terms are not substituted, and Stop Words are not stripped. |
| plus sign (+) | A word preceded by a plus sign (with no intervening spaces) indicates the word must be included in any document that is returned by the search. The exact string (case insensitive) is used; the word is not stemmed, Equivalent Terms and Related Terms are not substituted, and Stop Words are not stripped. |
| double minus sign (––) | If a word is preceded by a double minus sign (with no intervening spaces), all documents containing that word are excluded from the search results.The exact string (case insensitive) is used; the word is not stemmed, Equivalent Terms and Related Terms are not substituted, and Stop Words are not stripped. A single minus sign or hyphen (–) is not a search operator. If it appears in front of a number, it is used in the search. If it appears in front of a word, or at the end of a word or number, it is ignored. If it appears in the middle of a word or number (for example, look–up), the search will accept the hyphenated term, the term with the hyphen removed (lookup), or the two–word phrase (look up). If multiple hyphens appear in a word or number, the search will match the hyphenated term, the term with all the hyphens removed, or the multi–word phrase. |
| OR | If two words in the query are separated by OR, documents are returned by the search if they contain either word or both. The words are not stemmed or parsed; Equivalent Terms and Related Terms are not substituted; and Stop Words are not stripped.For example, puppy OR dog will find documents that include the word puppy, documents that include the word dog, and documents that include puppy and dog. If the query contains additional words, they are not included in the OR phrase. For example, healthy puppy OR dog food will find documents that include healthy puppy food and documents that include healthy dog food. |
| asterisk (*) | An asterisk at the end of a string outside quotation marks acts as a wildcard. For example, inst* will find documents that include any of the following words: install, installation, instruction, instigation, and so on. An asterisk elsewhere is treated as punctuation and is ignored. If you want to search for documents based on other criteria, regardless of the content, enter the wildcard character (*) by itself as the search text. |