Search support

There are several options available to increase the efficiency of your search.

Click here for more information.

Search
Search support
[close]
Wildcard Searches

To perform a single 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

To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the "*" symbol.
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.

Logic Operators

Logic operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. This search function supports AND, "+", OR, NOT and "-" as Logic operators (Note: Logic operators must be ALL CAPS).

OR
The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Logic 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.
To search for documents that contain either "jakarta apache" or just "jakarta" use the query: "jakarta apache" jakarta or "jakarta apache" OR jakarta

AND
The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.
To search for documents that contain "jakarta apache" and "Apache Lucene" use the query: "jakarta apache" AND "Apache Lucene"

+
The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in a the field of a single document.
To search for documents that must contain "jakarta" and may contain "lucene" use the query: +jakarta lucene

NOT
The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT. To search for documents that contain "jakarta apache" but not "Apache Lucene" use the query: "jakarta apache" NOT "Apache Lucene"

-
The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.
To search for documents that contain "jakarta apache" but not "Apache Lucene" use the query: "jakarta apache" -"Apache Lucene"

Boosting a Term

To boost a term use the caret, "^", symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.

Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for jakarta apache and you want the term "jakarta" to be more relevant boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You would type: jakarta^4 apache

This will make documents with the term jakarta appear more relevant.

By default, the boost factor is 1.