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In the toolbar search field you can use standard and extended Boolean operators, parenthesis, and more to fine-tune your search.

The syntax of the operators is compatible to DEVONagent and EasyFind, the Finder, Spotlight, common search engines as well as common programming languages such as C, C++, Objective-C, Java, and JavaScript. The complexity of the query is unlimited.


Case

All terms are case-insensitive. You may, if you wish, use capitalization for proper names in a query, but DEVONthink Personal will ignore case in interpreting the query.


Precedence of terms

Search terms and associated operators will be interpreted from left to right, except as modified by including portions of the query within parentheses.


Wildcards

You can replace parts of words with wildcards matching one, multiple, or a range of characters:

  • ?: Matches exactly one character.
  • *: Matches none, one, or multiple characters.
  • [a-b]: Matches one character of the range 'a' through 'b'.
  • [abc...] or [a|b|c|...]: Matches one character out of the given list of characters.
  • [^...]: Matches one character that is not contained in the given list or range.


Boolean operators

The operators (often called Boolean operators) are words or symbols that establish logical rules for the terms in the search query. If no operator is given, DEVONthink Personal implies AND. The available Boolean operators are:

  • term1 AND term2: Contains term1 AND term2
  • term1 BUT term2: Contains term1 AND term2
  • term1 OR term2: Contains term1 OR term2
  • term1 XOR term2: Contains term1 or term2, but not both
  • term1 EOR term2: Contains term1 or term2, but not both
  • NOT term: Does not contain term
  • "term1": Contains the string term1, in exactly this form

Beside the classic Boolean operators, DEVONthink Personal uses a number of operators that can usually only be found on high-end databases. Use them as a replacement for AND and "quotes" to fine-tune your query.

  • term1 OPT term2: term1 needs to occur, term2 can. If term2 does, the found document ranks higher in the search results.
  • term1 NEAR term2: term1 occurs 10 words or less before or after term2
  • term1 NEAR/n term2: term1 occurs n or less words before or after term2
  • term1 BEFORE term2: term1 occurs before term2
  • term1 BEFORE/n term2: term1 occurs n or less words before term2
  • term1 NEXT term2: term1 occurs right before term2 (shortcut for BEFORE/1)
  • term1 NEXT/n term2: term 1 occurs n or less words before term2 (synonym for BEFORE/n)
  • term1 AFTER term2: term1 occurs after term2
  • term1 AFTER/n term2: term1 occurs n or less words after term2
  • ~term1: Contains all words that begin or end with term1 (words containing term1 as a part of the word; depends on the queried search engine)

For convenience, some of these operators can also be abbreviated using commonly used symbols:

  • AND: &, &&, +
  • OR: |, ||
  • XOR: ^, ^^
  • NOT: !, -

Note: The symbols above are also used by the Finder and Mac OS X's Spotlight for searches. Enter the vertical ruler character for the OR operator by pressing Option-7 (e.g. on European keyboards).

Operators are evaluated in the following priority: parenthesis > phrase/hyphens > (NOT) BEFORE/AFTER/NEAR/NEXT > NOT > AND/OR/XOR/EOR. Terms with same priority but without parenthesis are evaluated from left to right.


White space handling

Words concatenated by non-white separators (e.g. www.devon-technologies.com or page_id) are treated like phrases put into "quotes". Words separated by hyphens are handled like word1word2 OR "word1 word2". Characters separated by dots are considered to be abbreviations and therefore handled like words separated by hyphens, e.g. the term t.a.t.u is equal to "t a t u" OR tatu


Examples

Using any or all of the operators and rules layed out above you can create complex queries that find exactly what you are looking for. Here are some example queries that show how the operators are used.

Example: Devonian Dinosaurs

This query looks for all documents that contain the words 'devonian' and 'dinosaurs'.

Example: (Steve NEAR Jobs) AND iMac BUT NOT MacBook OPT Pro

This query looks for documents that contain the words 'Steve' and 'Jobs' not farther away from each other than ten words as well as the word 'iMac' (no specific position relative to Steve and Jobs) but not the word 'MacBook'. The word 'Pro' does not need to occur but if it does, the document is ranked higher in the list of search results.

Example: Paracetamol NEAR (~effect OR impact) AND ((side OR second*) NEAR/2 ~effect)

This query looks for documents containing the word 'Paracetamol' near (within ten words) to words either starting with 'effect' (and so also 'effects') or being 'impact'. In addition, the document needs to contain the word 'side' or any word staring with 'second' within two words range from any word starting with 'effect'.

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