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Search

Following are some examples of the different features of the search:

Phrases:

Phrase Search allows you to search for documents containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than comparing a set of keywords in random order. To use phrase search use quotation marks (") around a specific phrase:

"Krsna is never alone"

Wildcards:

Search supports single and multiple character wildcard searches within single terms (not within phrase queries).

To perform a single character wildcard search use the "?" symbol.

To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the "*" symbol.

The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match that with the single character replaced. For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search:

te?t

Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for Hari, Harinama or Haridāsa, you can use the search:

hari*

You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.

pre*us

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

Proximity search:

Vedabase search supports finding words are a within a specific distance away. To do a proximity search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a Phrase. For example to search for a "paraphenalia" and "king" within 4 words of each other in a document use the search:

"paraphernalia king"~4

Boolean:

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. Search supports AND, "+", OR, NOT and "-" as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).

OR

The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in a document. This is equivalent to a union using sets. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR.

To search for documents that contain either "krsna" or "cow" use the query:

krsna cow

or

krsna OR cow

AND

The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.

To search for documents that contain "practical application" and "control of the mind" use the query:

"practical application" AND "control of the mind"

+ (plus)

The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in a the field of a single document.

To search for documents that must contain "pure" and may contain "devotion" use the query:

+pure devotion

NOT

The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. This is equivalent to a difference using sets. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT.

To search for documents that contain "pure devotional service" but not "mixed devotional service" use the query:

"pure devotional service" NOT "mixed devotional service"

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:

NOT "mixed devotional service"

- (minus)

The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.

To search for documents that contain "cow" but not "dog" use the query:

cow -dog

Grouping

Search supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.

To search for either "krsna" or "gopi" and "arjuna" use the query:

arjuna AND (krsna OR gopi)

Boosting:

Search engine provides the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, "^", symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.

Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for

knowledge education

and you want the term "knowledge" to be more relevant boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You would type:

knowledge^10 education

This will make documents with the term knowledge appear more relevant. You can also boost Phrase Terms as in the example:

"pure devotion"^4 "mixed devotional service"

By default, the boost factor is 1. Although the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (e.g. 0.2)