Appendix B (Advanced Filter Syntax)
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To search for the word "shark," simply enter it as is:
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shark
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To search for the phrase "great white shark," use parenthesis and quotes:
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("great white shark")
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That last search looks for all three words in the order shown with no intervening words. Sometimes you would like to maintain the specified ordering but are willing to accept intervening words. To find "men are attacked by the great white shark," you could type the following which allows 3 words between each pair of words:
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("men attacked shark :3")
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Of course, the above phrase would also find something like "men are attacking and killing sharks."
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Sometimes, because you're unsure of all of the words in a phrase, you may wish to specify that one or more of the words in the phrase are "expendable." For example, the following example specifies that any two of the words specified may be missing and still cause a match:
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("men and women are attacked and killed by sharks :3:2")
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If the default span of zero is desired, the previous expression could be entered as:
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("men and women are attacked and killed by sharks ::2")
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To find two or more words "near" each other but in any order, use a proximity search. For example enter:
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[taxes deductions]
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This finds .".taxes after all the deductions.." as well as .".deductions figured from state taxes..."
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The brackets indicate that you want to find the words within a certain span or range. The default width of the span is 20 words. You may override the default: For example, here we make the span 10:
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[federal deductions taxes :10]
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You may also specify an expendable count. In the following example, we allow two words to be missing from those specified:
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[federal and state deductions taxes :10:2]
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To find all documents containing "shark," "whale" or "dolphin" (or any combination thereof), use the vertical bar character:
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shark | whale | dolphin
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To find all documents containing both "sea" and "ocean," use the ampersand character:
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sea & ocean
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Any place that you can use a single word in an expression, you may also use a phrase, proximity, or OR ("|") sub-expression. Here are some examples:
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failed | "gave up"
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("deep sea diving | scuba") or equivalently ("deep sea (diving | scuba)")
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["cookies and cream" sweets]
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(" ("Mother Theresa") ("India") :20")
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Notice that phrases within phrases require parentheses.
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Parentheses may be used to specify the order in which you want the expression to be evaluated. In the following example, we want the AND (&) to be evaluated before the OR (|):
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(fast & cars) | racing
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In the next example, we want the OR (|) to be evaluated before the AND (&):
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Indy 500 & (fast | cars)
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