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User assistance for content authors |
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How to use a search query form
The following search syntaxes can be used when you search for text by using the "search_query" parameter.
- Plus ( + ) and minus ( - ) signs
- The plus and minus signs do not join terms, but operate only on the term that follows them.
- Quotation marks ( " )
- Use quotation marks to combine words into search phrases, for
example "IBM software".Note: When you search for strings with special query characters, such as a blank or a colon ( : ), you must enclose your search string in quotation marks.
- Trailing wildcards
- Use an asterisk ( * ) as a trailing wildcard in your search string, for example softw* .
Using the plus and minus signs
For your
query, type any words that describe what you are looking for. Use
the plus and minus signs as follows:
- Put a plus sign ( + ) in front of the words that you want to be present in the returned documents.
- Put a minus sign ( - ) in front of the words that must not be present in the returned documents.
- When you use signs, do not leave any space between the sign and the following word qualified by the sign.
Plus sign examples
- +thinkpad
- All documents that are retrieved must contain the word thinkpad. A single unsigned word, thinkpad, is also read this way, and is treated by the search engine as +thinkpad.
- +thinkpad +drivers
- All documents that are retrieved must contain the word thinkpad and the word drivers.
- +thinkpad drivers
- All documents that are retrieved must contain the word thinkpad, but only optionally the word drivers.
Minus sign examples
- +thinkpad -drivers
- All documents that are retrieved must contain the word thinkpad but must not contain the word drivers.
Note:
- Do not use only minus signed terms for your search because they do not produce a result list. The reason is that in this case the search terms are too vague to allow for a meaningful scoring of the found documents.
- Use spaces between signed terms in order to distinguish them from terms that contain a minus sign, such as e-mail. Note that e-mail is treated as "e-mail" whereas e -mail is treated as optionally e, and the word mail should not be contained in the resulting documents.