HP IAP Version 2.1 User Guide, March 2011

Using the NOT operator
The Boolean NOT operator excludes every term after NOT in a query.
For example, the query beta* NOT beta2 would look for beta1 or beta05, but not beta2.
For IAP searches, the NOT operator must always connect at least two terms or sub-expressions (such
as yes NOT no), but the query cannot consist solely of negative criteria (such as (NOT yes) OR
(NOT no)).
The following table shows examples of legal and illegal IAP queries using the NOT operator:
illegalNOT quiet
illegal(NOT quiet) AND (NOT blue)
illegalNOT NOT quiet
legalblue NOT quiet
legalnois? NOT noisy
Example of queries using NOT operator
In the example below, five email messages are archived that contain the following text:
John V. BrownMessage 1
Jim BrownMessage 2
Benefits for Brown, JimMessage 3
Jim SmithMessage 4
Benefits for Brown, SallyMessage 5
The following queries in the Search for field use the NOT operator correctly and successfully locate
the relevant messages:
Table 13 Boolean NOT operator properly used in query
ResultQuery
Message 1
Message 5
brown NOT jim
Message 1
Message 2
Message 3
(John OR Jim) NOT smith
Message 5
(benefits AND Brown) NOT Jim
Message 1
brown NOT (jim OR sally)
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