Web Site Search Engine Guide

Actipro Software Web Site Forum

Posted 17 years ago by Actipro Software Support - Cleveland, OH, USA
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The Actipro support forums and WPFpedia (WPF Resource Guide) now both use a powerful search engine that allow for complicated search queries. This page reviews the basic syntax that may be used for the queries.

Terms

A query is broken up into terms and operators. There are two types of terms: Single Terms and Phrases.

A Single Term is a single word such as "test" or "hello".

A Phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes such as "hello dolly".

Multiple terms can be combined together with Boolean operators to form a more complex query (see below).

Wildcard Searches

The search engine supports single and multiple character wildcard searches within single terms (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.

Boolean Operators

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 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.

To search for documents that contain either "Actipro Software" or just "Actipro" use the query:
"Actipro Software" Actipro
or
"Actipro Software" OR Actipro

AND

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.

To search for documents that contain "Actipro Software" and "Actipro SyntaxEditor" use the query:
"Actipro Software" AND "Actipro SyntaxEditor"

+

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 "Actipro" and may contain "SyntaxEditor" use the query:
+Actipro SyntaxEditor

NOT

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.

To search for documents that contain "Actipro Software" but not "Actipro SyntaxEditor" use the query:
"Actipro Software" NOT "Actipro SyntaxEditor"
Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:
NOT "Actipro Software"

-

The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.

To search for documents that contain "Actipro Software" but not "Actipro SyntaxEditor" use the query:
"Actipro Software" -"Actipro SyntaxEditor"

Grouping

The search engine supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.

To search for either "Actipro" or "Software" and "website" use the query:
(Actipro OR Software) AND website
This eliminates any confusion and makes sure that "website" must exist and either term "Actipro" or "Software" may exist.

[Modified at 08/24/2007 08:16 AM]


Actipro Software Support

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