Search Query Syntax

Basic Searching

The search engine, by default, will find documents with all of the words that you enter into the search form. For example, the query:

    smilla sense snow

will find documents with all of the words "smilla", "sense" and "snow"; it will not find documents with just one or two of those words. To find documents with any of the entered words, use:

    smilla or sense or snow

(Refer to the section "Complex Queries", below, for more information about the logical operators AND, OR and NOT.)

Searches are never case-sensitive. For example, the query:

    smilla

will find documents with "smilla", "Smilla", "SMILLA", etc.

Phrase Searching

To search for a phrase, use quotation marks to delimit the search terms.

    "smilla's sense of snow"

Suffix Matching

The query:

     snow

will find documents with the word "snow"; it will not find documents with "snowing" or "snowy". To match different suffixes, use an asterisk (*) at the end of the word stem. (Anywhere but the end of a word stem, the * is considered a normal character.) For example, the query:

     snow*

will find "snowing", "snowy", etc., along with "snow".

Complex Queries

You can use the Boolean operators OR or NOT in searching, to change the default logical conjunction of search terms. (The default, AND, can also be entered explicitly.) For example, the query:

     smilla or snow

will find documents with either (or both) of the words "smilla" and "snow". The query:

     smilla not snow

will find documents with "smilla" but not "snow". The queries:

     smilla and snow and not sense
     smilla snow not sense

will find documents with both "smilla" and "snow" but not "sense". The query:

     smilla or snow not sense

will find documents with either "smilla" or "snow" (or both) but not "sense".

Boolean expressions are always evaluated left-to-right:

    juliet not ophelia and pac 

will find documents with "juliet" and "pac" but not "ophelia". You can force the order of evaluation by using parentheses. For example, the query:

    juliet not (ophelia and pac) 

will find documents with "juliet" that do not have both "ophelia" and "pac", and

    juliet not (ophelia or pac) 

will find documents with "juliet" that do not have either "ophelia" or "pac".