5.0

Types of Searches
178
Pattern Matching Searches
Complex word searches are called Indexed queries and can only be done on indexed queues.
They use the question mark or asterisk characters to perform pattern-matching searches.
Use of Question Mark
The question mark character ( ? ) allows any character to be in a particular position in a matching
string for the search pattern. It can be used to represent any single character, and you can use it if
you aren’t sure of a word’s spelling ("advis?r" or "station?ry").
For example, the query
s?ow finds “snow,” “slow,” “show,” “stow,” and so on
Use of Asterisk
To search for stories containing variations of a word, add an asterisk ( * ) to the word. The
asterisk represents any number of characters in a search (including none).
For example, the query
snow* finds “snow,” “snowing,” and “snowstorm, ” while the query
*storm finds “brainstorm,” “snowstorm,” and “windstorm. The query s*ow finds “snow,”
“show,” “stow,” “slow,” and “sorrow.”
Phrase Searches
Phrase searches are Indexed queries which can only be done on indexed queues. They can
conform to either a Basic syntax or Advanced (Complex) syntax. Basic syntax uses the operators,
AND, OR, NOT, and ANDNOT. With advanced syntax you can use the abbreviated operators (
& | ! ). The ( & ) character is equivalent to AND. The ( | ) character is equivalent to OR. The ( ! )
character is equivalent to NOT.
To search for a phrase, you must enclose it in generic double quotes
( " " ). Example: "White & House". Special characters, if used, will retain their meaning when in
a phrase search. Special words in the query language will be derived from a site-specific
dictionary. These words are not case-sensitive. To include them in a search, they must be escaped
by the backslash character ( \ ).
To query text containing quotation marks, for example: he said "all good things"
You must remove the quotation marks, as they are not indexed, or the search will not yield any
results. Instead, use: "he said all good things"
n
Like the Find All and Seek features of iNEWS, the FTS server has special words, such as AND,
OR, NOT, NEAR, and so on. Such words are not case-sensitive, but to be included as words to
match in a search, they must be preceded by the backslash character ( \ ).