Search operation table

The table below provides syntax of all elements allowed in text search queries. See also Query language specification, Search flow.

ElementSyntaxDescriptionExamples
Parentheses( inner-query )Parentheses are used to specify order of operations.
  • term1 | (term2 & term3)
  • ("total expenses" | "total costs") & (82000 ~~ 83000
Field specifierfield-name : inner-queryField specifier is used to specify field name.
  • content : term
  • creationdate : (2010 ~~ 2013)
  • filename : report & creationdate : 2009
Exact phrase query specifier" exact-phrase-query "Exact phrase query specifier is used to specify phrase for phrase search.
  • "term1 term2 term3"
  • "computational complexity theory"
  • "formal language" AND harrison
And operationleft-query & right-query
left-query AND right-query
And operation is used to find documents that contain both left query and right query.
  • term1 & term2
  • term1 AND term2
  • computational & complexity
Or operationleft-query | right-query
left-query || right-query
left-query OR right-query
Or operation is used to find documents that contain left query, or right query, or both.
  • term1 | term2
  • term1 || term2
  • term1 OR term2
  • "cumulative distribution function" OR "cumulative density function"
Not operation! inner-query
NOT inner-query
Not operation is used to find all documents which do not contain inner query.
  • ! term
  • NOT term
  • author : (Cardano AND NOT Gerolamo)
Macro name specifier@macro-nameMacro name specifier is used to specify name of macro within search query that will be replaced with the body of the macro before parsing the query.
  • @query_macro
  • @macro1 & @macro2
Regular expression specifier^regular-expressionRegular expression specifier is used to specify query that is regular expression.
  • ^^[0-9]{1,5}$
Numeric range specifierstart-number ~~ end-numberNumeric range specifier is used to specify range for numeric range search.
  • 13 ~~ 42
  • 10000000000 ~~ 100000000000
Date range specifierdaterange( start-date ~~ end-date)
where start-date and end-date are dates in the format 'yyyy-MM-dd'.
Date range specifier is used to specify range for date range search.
  • daterange(2017-09-28 ~~ 2017-11-11)
Wildcard (since v.18.12)? - wildcard character,
?(N~M) - wildcard character range,
*N - wildcard word,
*N~~M - wildcard word range,
where N and M are in the range from 0 to 255.
Wildcard characters and wildcard words are used to search for words with unknown characters and phrases with unknown words, respectively.
  • ?ffect - for 'affect', 'effect'
  • princip?(2~4) - for 'principal', 'principle', 'principles', 'principally'
  • ?(0~2)sure - for 'assure', 'ensure', 'sure'
  • "\"First law *1 thermodynamics\"" - for 'First law of thermodynamics'
  • "\"Frodo *1~~5 Pippin\"" - for 'Frodo spoke to Pippin', 'Frodo stripped the blankets from Pippin'
Escape sequence (since v.19.2)\N
where N can be one of
( ) : " & | ! ^ ~ * ? \
- or -
s (for space character)
- or -
uhhhh
where h is hexadecimal digit (for any Unicode character)
The escape sequence allows a special character to be used in a query as it is. Note that an escaped character must be represented in Alphabet in order for it to be indexed as a valid character (not as Separator).
  • \& - escaping & character
  • \~ - escaping ~ character
  • \s - escaping space character
  • \u0026 - escaping & character (Unicode code)
  • R\&B - searching for ‘R&B’ as a whole word (& character must have an appropriate type in Alphabet before indexing)

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