Search tips
We have compiled a list of search tips you could use to save some time when you are looking for something in the community.
Search by keyword
The simplest method is to search with a keyword or tag by entering it in the main search page. The search is keyword index based, so make sure each keyword you enter is more than three letters in length.
For example, you can enter 'php socket programming' as the search keyword, which will bring all discussions that contain the keywords php, socket and programming, with the most relevant one first.
Boolean search
The boolean full-text search capability supports the following operators:
| + | A leading plus sign indicates that this word must be present in each row that is returned. |
| - | A leading minus sign indicates that this word must not be present in any
of the posts that are returned. Note: The - operator acts only to exclude posts that are otherwise matched by other search terms. Thus, a boolean-mode search that contains only terms preceded by - returns an empty result. It does not return “all posts except those containing any of the excluded terms.” |
| (no operator) | By default (when neither + nor - is specified) the word is optional, but the posts that contain it are rated higher. |
| > < | These two operators are used to change a word's contribution to the relevance value that is assigned to a row. The > operator increases the contribution and the < operator decreases it. See the example following this list. |
| ( ) | Parentheses group words into subexpressions. Parenthesized groups can be nested. |
| ~ | A leading tilde acts as a negation operator, causing the word's contribution to the row's relevance to be negative. This is useful for marking “noise” words. A row containing such a word is rated lower than others, but is not excluded altogether, as it would be with the - operator. |
| * | The asterisk serves as the truncation (or wildcard) operator. Unlike the
other operators, it should be appended to the word to be affected. Words match
if they begin with the word preceding the * operator.
If a stopword or too-short word is specified with the truncation operator, it will not be stripped from a boolean query. For example, a search for '+word +stopword*' will likely return fewer posts than a search for '+word +stopword' because the former query remains as is and requires stopword* to be present in a document. The latter query is transformed to +word. |
| " | A phrase that is enclosed within double quote (“"”) characters matches only
posts that contain the phrase literally, as it was typed.
Non-word characters need not be matched exactly: Phrase searching requires
only that matches contain exactly the same words as the phrase and in the same order.
For example, "test phrase" matches "test, phrase".
If the phrase contains no words that are in the index, the result is empty. |
The following examples demonstrate some search strings that use boolean full-text operators:
| 'apple banana' | Find posts that contain at least one of the two words. |
| '+apple +juice' | Find posts that contain both words. |
| '+apple macintosh' | Find posts that contain the word “apple”, but rank posts higher if they also contain “macintosh”. |
| '+apple -macintosh' | Find posts that contain the word “apple” but not “macintosh”. |
| '+apple ~macintosh' | Find posts that contain the word “apple”, but if the row also contains the word “macintosh”, rate it lower than if row does not. This is “softer” than a search for '+apple -macintosh', for which the presence of “macintosh” causes the row not to be returned at all. |
| '+apple +(>turnover <strudel)' | Find posts that contain the words “apple” and “turnover”, or “apple” and “strudel” (in any order), but rank “apple turnover” higher than “apple strudel”. |
| 'apple*' | Find posts that contain words such as “apple”, “apples”, “applesauce”, or “applet”. |
| '"some words"' | Find posts that contain the exact phrase “some words” (for example, rows that contain “some words of wisdom” but not “some noise words”). Note that the “"” characters that enclose the phrase are operator characters that delimit the phrase. They are not the quotes that enclose the search string itself. |
Tag browser
The tag browser helps you to find articles and posts that are tagged with a particular keyword. You can click the letter of your choice and the tag names that start with the particular letter will be listed along with the number of posts associated.