Advanced Searching Techniques
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Advanced Searching Techniques |
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The help system supports the following advanced searching techniques:
You can search for words or phrases using wildcard expressions. Wildcard expressions allow you to search for one or more characters using a question mark or asterisk. The table below describes the results of these different kinds of searches.
Search For |
Example |
Results |
A single word |
light |
Topics that contain the word light . (You will also find its grammatical variations, such as lighting.) |
A phrase |
"workgroup design" or workshop design |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "workgroup design" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying workgroup AND design, which will find topics containing both of the individual words, instead of the phrase. |
Wildcard expressions |
water* or 19?0 |
Topics that contain the terms WATER, waterfall, waterproof, and so on. The asterisk cannot be the only character in the term. Topics that contain the terms 1970, 1980, 1990, and so on. The question mark cannot be the only character in the term. |
The AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR operators enable you to precisely define your search by creating a relationship between search terms. The following table shows how you can use each of these operators. If no operator is specified, AND is used. For example, the query "water ski boat" is equivalent to "water AND ski AND boat."
Search For |
Example |
Results |
Both terms in the same topic |
wave AND sand |
Topics containing both the words wave and sand. |
Either term in a topic. |
boat OR catamaran |
Topics containing either the word boat or the word catamaran or both. |
The first term without the second term. |
water NOT lake |
Topics containing the word water, but not the word lake. |
Both terms in the same topic, close together. |
swim NEAR ocean |
Topics containing the word swim within eight words of the word ocean. |
Note:
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Nested expressions allow you to create complex searches for information. For example, ocean AND ((swim OR surf) NEAR Malibu) finds topics containing the word ocean along with the words swim and Malibu close together, or containing ocean along with the words surf and Malibu close together.
The basic rules for searching Help topics using nested expressions are as follows:
You can use parentheses to nest expressions within a query. The expressions in parentheses are evaluated before the rest of the query.
If a query does not contain a nested expression, it is evaluated from left to right. For example: scuba NOT Florida OR Bahamas finds topics containing the word scuba without the word Florida, or topics containing the word Bahamas. Conversely, scuba NOT (Florida OR Bahamas) finds topics containing the word scuba without either of the words Florida or Bahamas.
You cannot nest expressions more than five levels deep.