Searching for articles can be performed using the Text search window, which uses an advanced free-text search that looks through all text fields, including Titles, Problems, and Solutions. You can also search by specific article fields by selecting the field name in the Find selection list.
In addition, the Search toolbar allows for a quick search by Category and Status.
Search Articles window
Free-Text Search Options
The Text search allows you to use search conditions to look for character strings composed of words, phrases, logical operators, and parentheses for grouping precedence.
In order to use the conditional search, the searched text should include reserved words, including the logical operators OR, AND, NOT, and NEAR. The precedence of the logical operators, from lowest to highest, is OR, AND, NOT, NEAR.
You can use parentheses to change the precedence grouping. For example, using the search condition ”meeting and request or changelog” finds records that have both the words "meeting" and "request" or the word "changelog." However, using the search condition “meeting and (request or changelog),” causes the search condition to find records that have the word "meeting" and either of the words "request" or "changelog."
The logical OR operator produces a "true" result when either text is found. The logical AND operator produces a true result only when both of its sides are true. The logical NOT operator produces a true result when its single-text string has a false result. The NEAR operator (proximity operator) is similar to the AND operator in that both of its sides must be found. In addition, it requires that its operands be within a certain physical distance of each other for it to return a true result. The default distance for the NEAR operator is 8 words. To use a proximity value other than the default, specify the distance as a parameter to the NEAR operator. For example “medical near(15) doctor” will evaluate to true for records where the word "medical" is within 15 words of "doctor."
Search words that do not have specified logical operators are assumed to have an implied AND operator between them. For example, the following two search conditions are equivalent:
“mechanical engineer” and “mechanical AND engineer”.
The following two searches are also equivalent: “computer programmer or software developer”
and “(computer AND programmer) OR (software AND developer)”.
Searching with wildcards
Individual search words that are not enclosed in double quotes can be searched for as exact matches, prefix matches, postfix matches, or substring matches. This behavior is controlled through the use of the asterisk (*) character.
| • | Exact match. Simply specify the word in the search condition. The word will be matched if it is found exactly as given in the text. For example, the search word "special" will match only "special" in the text (or upper case versions if it is not a case sensitive index). |
| • | Prefix match. Place an asterisk at the end of the word to match all words that begin with the given characters. For example, the search word "special*" will match "special", "specialty", "specialization", etc. |
| • | Postfix match. Place an asterisk at the beginning of the word to match all words that end with the given characters. For example, the search word "*ation" will match words "station", "specialization", "citation", etc. |
| • | Substring match. Place an asterisk at both the beginning and end of the word to match all words that contain the given characters. For example, the search word "*lock*" will match the words "locker", "antilock", "blocking", etc. |
Double quotes are used as phrase delimiters. In addition, special characters can be enclosed inside double quotes to ensure that they are unchanged by the search condition parser. For example, to search for a parenthesis, it is necessary to enclose it in double quotes in order to keep it from being treated as a precedence operator in the search condition itself. To search for a physical double quote, use two of them in a row.
Natural Language Engine: Obtain better search results by eliminating unimportant words |