Advanced Searching

Advanced search methods and syntax are described below. Also see Basic Search Syntax.

Phrase Searching

To search for a phrase, use "double quotation marks". For example, "press release" finds records that contain that exact phrase.

If you are using a quick search or AllText box, you can narrow the search by indicating the content type and field name. For example, to find books that contain the phrase "young adult" in the Summary field:

books.summary:"young adult"

Case, Punctuation, and Spaces

Capitalization is ignored when searching. However, special operators (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, TO) must be all upper case:

cat OR mouse

Punctuation marks that have special meaning (period, colon, equals sign, ~, ^, double quotation marks, parentheses) are interpreted as part of the query syntax. If you think special characters might be misinterpreted, enclose the search criteria in "double quotation marks". For example:

"company.com: press release"

If a content type or field name includes spaces, replace each space with an underbar (News_Archives). If a content type or field name begins with a digit, use an underbar in front of it (_401K_Statements).

Truncation

Use an asterisk (*) at the end of a word or phrase to represent one or more characters, to broaden a search:

• The asterisk must be at the end of a word or a phrase. For example: car*

• The asterisk must be outside of the quotation marks for a phrase search, and it affects all words. For example: "new red car"* may find "new reddish carpet".

• The asterisk must be outside of the brackets for a NEAR search, and it affects both words. For example: [new NEAR car]*

Boolean AND OR NOT Searches

Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) must be all upper case or they will be interpreted as ordinary words. If you include multiple operators, use parentheses to control evaluation order. Parentheses are required if you specify the content type or field; and they are recommended in complex expressions to control the order of evaluation.

If you are using a quick search or AllText box, you can narrow the search by including the content type and field name:

Range Searches

Use the following syntax to search a field on a search screen for a range of numbers, dates, or text. The start and end values must each consist of just one word (not multiple words), and the word TO must be all upper case. Truncation (*) is not allowed. Note the use of square or curly brackets to indicate whether the start and end values should be included or excluded.

The following examples show how to do range searches on a search screen.  

If you are using a quick search or AllText box, you cannot do a "plain" range search. You must specify the content type and/or field and use an equals sign (=) to indicate a range. If the specified values are not found within a single term entry in a field, no records will be returned.

Finding Recent Content

You can use the TODAYS_DATE variable to retrieve recent content. The name must be typed exactly as shown, all in upper case.

Since the Search Screen date search controls limit you to typing dates in the text boxes, you must use the Quick Search box on the menu bar or Home page, or an AllText box on a Search Screen.

When searching for simple Date fields or Permissive Date fields, you can use an equals search. When searching for Timestamp fields (including DateCreated and DateModified), you must use a range search.

Searching Permissive Date Fields

Permissive Date fields accept dates in a variety of formats, for example:

15-May-99

[c1964]

Spring 2012

Monday, February 4, 2013

May 2014, project due

N/A

Using the Date Search control on a Search Screen, you can search for either the date value or any words in the field (for example, Spring, Monday, due). To determine if the field is a normal Date field or a Permissive Date field, look for the additional Any word: box shown below. The controls for normal Date fields do not include the Any word: box.

To search for a single date, use the Exact date: control. To find all dates in a certain month, season, or year, type the partial date in any recognizable format.

To search for a range of dates, use the Between: and and: controls. With partial dates, the Between: control uses the beginning of the implied date range, and the and: control uses the end.

To search for words or phrases anywhere in the field, use the Any word: control. For example, a search for Spring will retrieve records containing the word "spring" anywhere in the field. However, it will not retrieve a record where the field contains "5/1/2013".

Finding Words Near Each Other

If you are not sure of the exact phrasing or word order, you can search for words close to one another (before or after). You must include square brackets and NEAR must be all upper case. You cannot include phrases, stemming, or synonyms. All records that contain both words will be displayed in the search results, but those where the words are near each other will be listed first with a Most to Least Relevant sort.

[word1 NEAR word2]

For example:

[feature NEAR release]

If you use truncation, the asterisk must be outside the brackets and it affects both words (so this example may find "released several new features"):

[feature NEAR release]*

Finding Tags

To find a tagged record or blog post, do a search as you normally would, and if the record or post is tagged with the specified word or phrase, it will be found. You can also use the Tags field on a search screen or click a tag in a cloud. If you want to search only for tags, use the following methods in a quick search or AllText box.

(The syntax is Content_Type_Name.Tags=Value. There is one optional qualifier, which is the user name of the person who assigned the tag: Content_Type_Name.Tags.User_Name=Value.)

Finding Comments

To find a commented record or blog post, do a search as you normally would, and if an item is commented with the specified word or phrase, it will be found. If you want to search only for comments, use the following methods in a quick search or AllText box.

Finding Active or Inactive Records

Every record is either active or inactive. If a Search Screen contains a control that allows you to search for active or inactive records, you can simply select True (to find active records) or False (to find inactive records). Otherwise, you can use the following methods in a Quick Search or All Fields box.

The syntax is:

Content_type_name.Active=true
Content_type_name.Active=false

Finding All Records

To find all records in the database, type an asterisk (*) in the Quick Search box on the menu bar. You can also use a Quick Search box on the Home page if it searches all fields in all content types.

To find all records for a specific content type (such as Books), choose the content type from the Search menu, then type an asterisk (*) in the All Fields box. You can also use either of the following searches in a Quick Search box.

books.alltext:*

books.active=(true OR false)

Finding Populated or Empty Fields

To find populated fields, use an asterisk (*).

• On a Search Screen: Type * in any field

• In a Quick Search box: Use the syntax content_type_name.field_name=*. For example: books.subjects=*

To find empty fields, use empty quotation marks.

• On a Search Screen: Type "" in any field (except an All Fields box)

• In a Quick Search box: Use the syntax content_type_name.field_name="". For example: books.subjects=""

• You can also use the same syntax as for populated fields, preceded by NOT. For example, on a Search Screen, type NOT * in any field. If the boxes on the Search Screen are preceded by AND/OR/NOT drop-down lists, you can select NOT, then type an asterisk in the box.

Including Synonyms

If your Presto administrator has configured a thesaurus, you can do synonym searching.

• Precede a word with a tilde (~) to expand the search to include synonyms (~funny finds amusing, silly, etc.).

• If you are doing a phrase search, the tilde must be outside of the quotes. All quoted words will be affected.

• You cannot combine stemming with a synonym search.

Using Stemming

Stemming (^) is the ability to find word stems and grammatical variations of words and phrases (plurals and tenses). This often gives better search results. Stemming works "both ways"; for example, if you type the singular form of the word, stemming will also retrieve the plural form; if you type the plural form, stemming will also retrieve the singular form. Stemming is on by default, but your administrator may have turned it off.

If Stemming is on (the default), it will be used automatically. To prohibit stemming, enclose the search criteria in quotes:

• study finds studious, studying, students, etc. (stemming occurs)

• "study" finds study (quotation marks prohibit stemming)

• "study"* finds study, studying, but not studious or studies (does truncation, not stemming)

If Stemming has been turned off, include a caret (^) to request stemming:

• study finds study (stemming does not occur)

• ^study finds study, studious, studying, studies, etc. (stemming occurs)

• ^"run study" finds "run study", "running studies", etc. (stemming applies to all quoted words)

Please note the following:

• If you use stemming on a phrase, the caret must be outside of the quotation marks. Stemming is applied to all quoted words.

• Stemming works for Full Text searches (but not Term searches).

• You can do either stemming or synonym searching, but not both on the same search item.

Searching for Terms

A term search requires an exact complete match with the entire value in a field, and is indicated by an equals sign (=). Quotation marks are required. Some examples are shown below.

When doing a Term search, you can:

• Specify the complete term or search for "strings" at the beginning of a term by enclosing them in quotation marks

• Use truncation (*) at the end of a word or "string" (the asterisk must be outside of the quotation marks)

• Do an inclusive range search [start TO end]  for numbers, dates, or text (single words)

• Do an exclusive range search {start TO end} for numbers, dates, or text (single words)

• Use Boolean AND, OR, NOT (AND and NOT are only supported in Quick Search or AllText boxes)

The following are not supported for Term searches:

• Stemming (^)

• NEAR

• Synonyms (~)

Searching for Ratings

A rating is the number of stars assigned to a record. If a search screen includes the ability to search for ratings, you can check the Rating box(es) to indicate which ratings you want to find (see Searching for Social Content).

If you prefer to use a quick search or AllText box, use the following syntax:

Content_Type_Name.Rating.Qualifier=Value

Several examples are provided below.

Searching for URLs and Alternate Text

The easiest way to search for URLs or Alternate Text is to enter a word or phrase in the appropriate field on a search screen. For more complex searches, you can use the following methods in a quick search or AllText box.

The syntax is shown below, where "URL_Field_Name" represents the name of a field whose Data Type is URL and "Value" is the word or phrase you want to find:

Content_Type_Name.URL_Field_Name=Value

Content_Type_Name.URL_Field_Name.alternatetext=Value

Note that for URL fields only the Alternate Text (not the URL itself) is Term indexed.

Searching Categories

You can search the Category field on a search screen just like any other field. Use empty quotation marks to find records that have not been categorized ("").

If you are doing a quick search, you must specify the content type and Category field. For example, to find books that have not been categorized:

books.category=""

This quick search finds all content type records that have not been categorized:

category=""

If you are doing a Term search in a quick search box, you need to start at the root node name (which defaults to the name of the collection with the word Collection after it, but can be changed). For example, to retrieve the Earthquakes subcategory of the Disasters category in the News collection:

books.category="news collection disasters earthquakes"

Stop Words and Leading Articles

Stop words (or "noise words") are commonly-used words, such as a, an, the, for, to, and in. Presto ignores stop words in a phrase, within the search criteria as well as the record text. For example:

• A search for "suitable use" finds records that contain "suitable for use" or "suitable in use".

• A search for "suitable for use" finds records that contain "suitable use", "suitable for use", "suitable in use".

To find an exact match, use a Term search (="suitable use") rather than a phrase search.

Leading articles are words that come at the beginning of a term and are meant to be ignored when sorting or searching. For example, The Sun Also Rises will be sorted under "Sun", not "The"; and a search for ="sun also rises" will find "The Sun Also Rises".

Advanced Syntax Summary

To construct complex queries, you can use advanced syntax in the Quick Search box. Do not use it on a search screen, except in an AllText box, which searches all fields.

Content_Type_Name.Field_Name:Value

For example, to search the Books content type for a Summary that contains the phrase "city life":

Books.Summary:"city life"

If a content type or field name includes a space, use an underbar. For example:

News_Articles.Short_Description:president

If a content type or field name begins with a digit, use an underbar in front of it. For example:

_401K_Statements._1st_Quarter:smith

To do a Term search, use an equals sign (=). Partial matches will not be found:

Books.Title="King Lear"

When searching for Ratings, Tags, or URLs, you can include an optional qualifier name and value:

Content_Type_Name.Field_Name.Qualifier=Value

The Qualifier depends on which field you are searching. For example, to search Books that were tagged "travel" by the user Admin:

Books.Tags.Admin=travel