Chapter 13. Search expressions

You can search by multiple words, use search operators, and search by exact phrases.

By default the search does not include the search for synonyms and fuzzy search features. To access these features, use specific search expressions.

The following table describes operators available both in the help search and in the full-text search in application data. If an operator is not available in any of these search types, it is explicitly stated in its description.

Operator

Example

Description

Space
AND
&

entry document

entry AND document
entry
& document

Find topics containing both entry and document (in any word form).

OR

|

,

entry OR document
entry 
| document
entry
, document

Find topics containing at least one of the words, either entry or document (in any word form).

NOT

~

closing NOT month
closing
~ month

Find topics containing closing, but not month (in any word form). A search string cannot begin with ~.

NEAR/[±]n

Example 1:
sale
NEAR/3 product

Example 2: 
sale
NEAR/+3 product

Example 3:
sale
NEAR/–3 product 

Find topics that contain the specified words (in any word form), separated by n or less words.
The sign determines the relative position of the second word ("+" if the second word comes after the first one, "-" if the second word comes before the first one).

If the sign is not specified, the search returns topics that contain both words separated by n or less words, their order does not matter.

Example 1 returns topics where product comes before or after sale, separated by a maximum of 3 words.
Example 2 returns topics where product comes after sale, separated by a maximum of 3 words.
Example 3 returns topics where product comes before sale, separated by a maximum of 3 words.

NEAR

posting NEAR document

Simplified version of the previous operator.
Find topics where both words are present, separated by a maximum of 8 words, their order does not matter.

""

"document posting"

Find the exact word sequence, each word can have any word form (equivalent to: document NEAR/+1 posting).

()

(post | create) & (account, document)

Use to specify the order of operators (the number of nesting levels is not limited).

*

docu*

A wildcard replacing the end of the word.
The search string must contain more than 1 significant character.
The search for "docu*" returns "document", "documenting", "documentation", and so on.

If the search returns more than 300 entries, you are prompted to refine the search.
When searching the help, you can use any number of * characters at any positions. Example: "post*docu*".

When using the full-text search, you can use a single * character at the end of the word. Example: the search for "post*" returns "posting" and "posted".

#

#System

System#2

Fuzzy search for words with the specified number of differences from the search string (1 if the number is omitted).
Examples:
The query "#System" (equivalent to "System#1") will find "systwm" and "sydtem".
The query "System#2" will find "syttwm" and "suttem".

This operator is supported in the full-text search. It is not supported in the help search.

!

 !red tile

Find synonyms (applicable to English, Russian and Ukrainian). "!" should precede the word whose synonyms you want to find. For example, the search for "!red tile" finds "scarlet tile" and "coral tile" as well.

This operator is supported in the full-text search. It is not supported in the help search.

If the search string does not include any operators (the words are separated by spaces), the spaces are treated as AND operators.

Note 1. The following operators must be provided in capital letters: ANDORNOTNEAR.
Note 2. Unary operators (search strings starting with operators) are not supported. For example, you cannot find all topics that do not contain the search string.
Note 3. Search string characters that are neither operators, nor letters, nor numbers are ignored. To search for words matching the search operators, enclose them in double quotation marks. Example: "NEAR".

The next chapter: Chapter 14. Web client

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