Constructing searches in RefTracker
RefTracker uses a proximity relevance search, like Google, if more than one search term is provided:
YOU CAN SEARCH BY
- Word
- Several words (they are ANDed together then ORed and results are presented in proximity relevance order)
- Phrase (“surround it with quotes”)
- Stem wildcard * that allows for word stem searching * e.g. world* that will find: world, worldly, worldwide, world’s, etc.
- A phrase that includes words and wildcards
YOU CANNOT SPECIFICALLY SEARCH FOR
- Capitals (they are treated as lower case)
Punctuation (they are treated as spaces) – to find a word containing punctuation, end the word with a wildcard at the point of the punctuation
e.g to find user’s
search for user*
The * wild card is treated as punctuation if is occurs anywhere other than at the end of a search term - Any single character
- Stop words (e.g. the, then, and, as, of, etc.)
When constructing searches in RefTracker (in any of the Search screens), knowing about these search rules will enable you to obtain the best results:
Here are some examples to help explain these rules. Your search criteria is searched for in both the question and the answer fields of all the entries in the Knowledge Base, or FAQ, according to the search type showing in the box to the left of the Search box:
| Search for | and you will find |
|---|---|
| fish | find only questions and answers containing the exact word fish |
| fish* | finds fish and fisherman and fishwife and fish’s |
| big fish | finds any questions and answers containing BOTH the words big and fish |
| “big fish” | finds only questions and answers containing the word big immediately followed by the word fish |
| “big fish*” | finds only questions and answers containing the word big immediately followed by words beginning with fish e.g. questions with the phrases big fish and also big fisherman |
| big fish! | big fish! Finds the same results as big fish because the punctuation is treated as a space |
| Big Fish | Finds the same results as big fish because the capitals are ignored |
| * | gives all questions and answers in the database because its the wild card (leaving the search box empty will provide the same result – all questions and answers) |
| of | gives no results because it is a stop word as are other common words like and, then, for, the |