Boolean Operators
| Operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| AND | AND combines two keywords: BMW AND bike will find all entries which mention the keyword BMW and the keyword bike. | BMW AND bike |
| AND NOT | AND NOT excludes a word of an entry: BMW AND NOT bike will find all entries with the keyword BMW, but only if the notion bike is not contained in the same article. | BMW AND NOT bike |
| OR | OR means that a least one of the terms which are linked by an OR have to be mentioned in the same article: BMW OR bike will find all entries that include either the keyword BMW or the keyword bike. | BMW OR bike |
| Exclusion of Keywords | Negative filters can be created by using the operator NOT. | NOT coupons |
| Phrase Search | Quotes "" are used for finding keyword sequences: "BMW series" will find all entries which contain the phrase "BMW series". In contrast the search query BMW AND series does not respect the order. | "bmw series" |
| Combinations | Brackets () are used to group several keywords in a way that operators can be applied on multiple terms within the brackets (distributive law). BMW AND (motorcycle OR car) is a shortform for (BMW AND motorcycle) OR (BMW AND car) | BMW AND (motorcycle OR car) |
| Wildcard Search | The Wildcard operator \* is a character that stands for 0 or any possible number. Wildcards are only accepted at the end of a keyword: Luxemb* will find all entries including keywords like Luxembourg , Luxemburg, Luxemburgish or any other keyword with the prefix Luxemb. | Luxemb* |
| Wildcard Search – one character | The question mark ? has a similar function as the wildcard operator, but only replaces exactly one character, i.e. it is useful in consideration of British and American English, e.g.: reali?ation finds realisation but also realization. | reali?ation |
| Proximity Search | The tilde symbol ~ analyses the surroundings of a character string which is enclosed in quotes (consisting at least two words). You cannot combine the tilde with the wildcard operator. e.g. "obama merkel"~5 finds "A statement released from the White House said Obama, Monti and Merkel agreed on certain steps" (3 jumps between both words), "obama merkel"~5 finds every entry, containing the keywords obama and merkel within an interval of maximum of 5 jumps. | "obama merkel"~5 |
| Fuzzy X Search | The tilde symbol ~X after a word searches for words similar to the given word. The value after the tilde (0, 1 or 2) defines the number of changed characters. roam~1 will also find foam. | roam~1 |
| Fuzzy Search | The tilde symbol ~ after up to 4 words in quotes will find those words as a four-part word with a hyphen, space or other special character in it: "car sharing"~ will find carsharing, car-sharing, car sharing etc. | "car sharing"~ |
| Raw Data Search | A simple + in front of a keyword samples an exact character string including special characters and punctuation, it does not consider lower and upper cases. It also works with brackets and tilde: +"l'oréal" or +"d&g" etc | +"l'oréal" |
| Exact Raw Data Search | Two ++ in front of a keyword samples an exact character string including special characters and punctuation, it does consider lower and upper cases. It also works with brackets and tilde: ++"L'Oréal" | ++"L'Oréal" |
| NEAR/x | The NEAR/x operator works similar to the proximity search operator, but also works with parentheses and thus can be used with multiple terms. (default value for x: 15) | (BMW OR Audi) NEAR/3 (motorcycle OR car) |
| ONEAR/x | Same as NEAR/x but respects the order of terms. | (BMW OR Audi) ONEAR/3 (motorcycle OR car) |
| Sentence Search | The SENTENCE operator works similar to the NEAR/x operator. It searches for keywords that appear in the same sentence. SENTENCE can also be used with multiple terms. | (BMW OR Audi) SENTENCE (motorcycle OR car) |
| Ordered Sentence Search | Same as SENTENCE but respects the order of terms in the sentence. | (BMW OR Audi) OSENTENCE (motorcycle OR car) |
note
In phrase search and raw data phrase search ("" or +"") the number and type white space characters are ignored.
For example "BMW series" (one space) will also match documents which contain "BMW series" (two spaces) and vice versa.
White space characters include spaces, tabs and new line characters, also transitions between letters and special characters are considered as whitespace.
For example +"P&T" will match P&T but also P& T and P & T.