Search syntax

The search string is case insensitive and can be composed using single terms (including wildcards) or phrases (delimited by double quotes), optionally combined using boolean operators. For example:

database* AND "web service" -test

You can also restrict the search to specific fields (example, only systems) using the following syntax: <field>:<value>. For example:

system:vmw* OR system:web*

Ensure that you enclose the complete search string within quotes to get accurate results. For example, if the search string is sys:TEST1, the search results return both TEST1 and TEST10. To search only for TEST1, use this syntax sys:"TEST1"

The following topics provide an overview of the search syntax:

Using wildcards

Wildcards allow you to search for similar terms using a single string.

Two types of wildcards are available:

Single character wildcards (?): Indicates one variable character. For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search string te?t.
Multiple character wildcards (*): Indicates zero or more variable characters. For example, to search for "test", "tests", or "testing" you can use the search string test*.

Using boolean operators

Boolean operators allow you to combine terms and phrases in a search using logical operators.

The following table lists the supported operators:

Note

Boolean operators must be specified using capital letters (upper case) in the search string.

Additional information

If no operator is specified between two terms, the AND operator is used by default.

Grouping search terms and phrases

You can use parentheses to group clauses and form sub-queries. For example:

(database* OR "web service") AND billing

Restricting the search using fields

You can restrict the search to specific fields using the syntax:

where <field> is an optional filter used to restrict search results. The available fields, including description and examples, are listed in the following table. For most fields, aliases that are easier and more intuitive to remember are also available, example, scenario instead of tc.

The following table lists advanced field options that allow you to search for unique IDs. This can be useful if you already know the specific ID of the object you are looking for.

The following table lists advanced field options that allow you to specify numerical ranges. This can be useful to search for systems based on their hardware characteristics.

Allowed operators are: >, >=, <, <=, = (can be omitted).

The fields disksize, ldisksize, and totalmem are expressed in bytes; you can append a letter to numerical values to specify a different unit: K (kilobyte), M (megabyte), G (gigabyte), T (terabyte), P (petabyte).

Escaping special characters

If you need to use special characters as part of the search string, they must be properly escaped using the \ character. For example, to search for a system called "Database (2)", you must escape the string as follows:

Database \(2\)

Special characters that need to be escaped are:

+ - && \|\| \! ( ) { } \[ \] ^ " ~ * ? : \ /