Search Syntax

Search Engine Syntax
Simple queries accept comma-delimited lists of strings and wildcard characters. The engine searches for whole words, so a search for SEA will find only those results containing the word SEA and not other words such as SEARCH. Simple queries do allow the use of wildcards, so you can search for SEA* and retrieve results containing SEARCH as well. Simple queries also have stemming properties, that is, a search for SEA will find words derived from the word SEA such as SEAS (as opposed to the word SEARCH which contains the the string SEA but is not derived from the word SEA). By providing a list of strings separated by commas, the comma is taken to imply logical OR. That is, a search for SEA, OCEAN will find all results with either the the word SEA or the word OCEAN or both. Without commas, a series of words is treated as a phrase, so searching for SEA OCEAN will find all results with the exact phrase SEA OCEAN in them. Simple queries also allow for the use of the basic Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT in a query. For example, sea AND ocean finds all results containing both SEA and OCEAN, whereas sea NOT ocean finds all results containing SEA but not OCEAN. Order of precedence applies when using Boolean operators; AND operators take precedence over OR operators. Therefore, in the expression sea OR ocean AND lake the expression "ocean AND lake" is evaluated first, and the result is then paired with "sea" to be evaluated in the remaining expression. Using parentheses can overide the order of precedence so that (sea OR ocean) AND lake causes "sea" OR "ocean" to be evaluated first.

Wildcard Examples
?	Matches any single alphanumeric character, i.e., SEA? matches SEAS and SEAT but not SEA
*	Matches zero or more alphanumeric characters, i.e., SEA* matches SEAS and SEAT but also SEA, SEARCH, SEAM and any other combination starting with SEA
[]	Matches one of the characters contained between the brackets, i.e., SEA[ST] matches SEAS and SEAT but not SEAM, SEA or SEARCH
{}	Matches all the patterns, separated by commas, contained in the curly brackets, i.e., SEA{M, RCH} matches SEAM and SEARCH but not SEAT, SEAS or SEA
^	When used inside square brackets, indicates that a match should be made for any character not contained in the brackets, i.e., SEA[^ST] matches SEAM and SEAL but not SEAS or SEAT
-	When used inside square brackets, indicates a range of characters, i.e., SEA[A-Z] matches every possible combination of SEA followed by a single letter including SEAS, SEAT, SEAM and SEAL