Searching for words or phrases

During a word or phrase search, the  engine finds requests that contain the specified word or phrase in the field. To perform a word or phrase search, use double-quotation marks around the words to search for. The syntax for the search qualification is:

For example, to search for the phrase firewall blocked, type:

With this example, a full text search finds requests with the phrase firewall blocked with the search for blocked expanded to the word stem block with any of its variants.

The use of wildcards in a word or phrase search affects how stemming is used. For more information, see Searching for variations of word stems.

The following table outlines the expected search results using a word or phrase search.

Results of searches that use a word or phrase search

Searching with a wildcard character

Users can use the percent sign (%) wildcard for any type of search to broaden the set of matching requests. For example, searching with the term %fire returns requests with fire and backfire. Searching with fire% returns requests with fire and firewall. Searching with %fire% returns all combinations.

A full-text search adds wildcards to search strings, but wildcards are not used in searches across multiple forms. For example, if you search for doc with full-text search, the percent wildcard (%) is added before and after the string (for example, %doc%). Results can include strings such as Doctor, Dock, doctrine, and haddock. Conversely, for searches across multiple forms, wildcards are not added. It is assumed that the application knows what the actual terms are (because the application is already using full-text search and controlling it more closely).

For more information about searching across multiple forms and examples, see Performing-searches-on-multiple-forms.

Searching for variations of word stems

The  engine uses stemming to search for common variations of word stems. For example, a word search for the term block returns requests containing these terms:

• block
• blocks
• blocked
• blocking

Searching for blocking returns the same set of requests. 

Stemming is not used in the following searches:

• Wildcard searches when there is a leading wildcard— For example, if the search term is %blocking or %blocking%, the returns only requests containing blocking. However, if the search term is blocking%, the  returns all requests containing block.
• Case-sensitive searches—For example, a case-sensitive search for block returns only requests containing block.