Searching for a phrase in the search tool

**Rick Y** · 14th August 13, 03:16 PM

Is there a way to make the search function locate only phrases rather than any combination of the words entered into the search field?

**Steve Ashton** · 14th August 13, 03:19 PM

Put the phrase you want to search for in quotation marks.

"the phrase I want to search"

**Hawk** · 14th August 13, 06:24 PM

Steve, I've also wondered as to this, for when I've done what you suggest, it still comes up with hits on the separate words, not just the phrase itself.

Hawk

**mookien** · 14th August 13, 06:33 PM

This brings up a closely related question (for me, anyway). Where on the forum are the syntactic rules for logical combinations (and, or, not, ...) of search words described? I have winged it in the past, but without much success. Does anyone out there know? Thanks.

**KiltedCodeWarrior** · 15th August 13, 06:55 AM

The forum allows searching using the boolean keywords AND, OR, and NOT. Suppose I wanted to find all threads that contain these two words: district, royal. I would type:

Code:

district AND royal

into the search box, no quotes. Or if I wanted any posts that contained either of these words, I would type:

Code:

district OR royal

Or maybe I want to find all posts that have district but not royal:

Code:

district NOT royal

Simple and powerful

**mookien** · 15th August 13, 07:47 AM

KCW: Thanks. I've tried using {.AND. .OR. .NOT.} before. Serves me right for using the mother tongue - FORTRAN.

**KiltedCodeWarrior** · 15th August 13, 08:13 AM

And I kept trying to use && and || !

**mookien** · 15th August 13, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by KiltedCodeWarrior

And I kept trying to use && and || !

I used those a lot in my later career doing more systems-level "stuff", but sort of tacitly assumed that an English language forum would not employ them. C what I mean.

Thanks again.

**Really a McQueen** · 15th August 13, 09:11 AM

Originally Posted by mookien

KCW: Thanks. I've tried using {.AND. .OR. .NOT.} before. Serves me right for using the mother tongue - FORTRAN.

At least you were not trying to form the search in COBOL.

**mookien** · 15th August 13, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Really a McQueen

At least you were not trying to form the search in COBOL.

Good point.

In my very early career I wrote some COBOL. While it was a bit cumbersome to formulate algorithms in COBOL, it had very fast (for those days) I/O. Those business guys really needed to move data around in a hurry.