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There are several features which you can utilize with both simple and advanced queries.

Special Symbols * ! ~ +
Precedence of Operators
Using Parentheses in Queries
Date Searching

There are a number of special symbols which change the meaning of the words entered in a query. They are:

The * or ! symbols are wildcards and can be used to search for any number of significant characters. Only one wildcard can be used per word.

The * wildcard can be used at the beginning of a word. Note that the amount of time to complete the query will increase as the position of the * moves toward the beginning of the word.

The * wildcard can also be used on its own to select all documents in the database. Only the first word of each document will be highlighted.

The ~ symbol activates word tense conflation. Type the ~ immediately following the word; do not include a space.

By default, conflation is set to "off". Using this symbol in a query will turn it on for this word.

Use the conflation operator at the beginning of a word, or at both ends of word.

The + symbol reverses the synonym expansion setting. Type the + immediately following the word, do not include a space.

When you enter a word into a query that is defined in a synonym ring, ISYS:web will also search for all other words in the ring.

By default, synonyms are turned on, using + will turn it off for a word. If your ISYS:web Administrator has changed the automatic synonym setting so that synonym expansion is "off", use + to turn it on.

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ISYS:web will assume a precedence, that is, an order for handling multiple operators in a complex query. The default precedence is:

1. Phrases
2. //, LABEL, IN, EXCEPT, TO, BEFORE, AFTER
3. \\
4. ..., .., AND, OR, NOT

Where a search expression, or portion of an expression, contains several operators of the same precedence, ISYS:web will process from left to right.

For example:

bonus AND manager OR supervisor

will be interpreted as find all documents that contain both bonus and manager OR those which contain supervisor.

To find documents that contain bonus and manager, OR supervisor, the query could be entered as:

manager OR supervisor AND bonus

When you enter a command-based search, you can control the order of precedence by using parentheses "( )". Just as we can use intonation in speech to clearly express a sentence that could be misinterpreted, we use parentheses to clearly express a query, overriding the ISYS:web defaults where necessary.

For example, the query:

car allowance // manager OR salesman

is interpreted using the default precedence as follows:

((car allowance) // manager) OR salesman

since the phrase car allowance has highest precedence, and the // or Near By operator has higher precedence than the OR operator.

To locate those documents containing the phrase car allowance in the same paragraph as either manager or salesman, use:

car allowance // (manager OR salesman)

Parentheses may be used anywhere sensible within a query. Examples include:

(manager OR supervisor) // bonus
the (quick OR slow) brown (fox OR kangaroo)
(manage* // (bonus OR reward) // paid) AND excess*
pet hates ... (alligator OR crocodile)
(Jones OR Smith)IN Author: AND media IN Subject:

The Court Opinions database uses Intelligent Date Handling.  Dates may be used in queries and will be located regardless of the form in which they are expressed in the query or in the document.

For the purposes of proximity searching, the entire date is considered to be a single hit, even if the date is actually expressed in three or four words. The exact location of the hit is taken to be that of the last component of the date. This is why only the final portion of the date sequence is highlighted in the ISYS:web browse page. Some examples of date searching:

20 September 1994
20/9/94
September 20, 1994

The BEFORE and AFTER operators are specifically designed for use with date searching. Several examples include:

BEFORE 25 Dec 1991
AFTER 08/25/93

See Also:

Search Examples
Compound Queries

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