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![]() | Search operators | ||
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.
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.
Search terms and associated operators will be interpreted from left to right, except as modified by including portions of the query within parentheses.
You can replace parts of words with wildcards matching one, multiple, or a range of characters:
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:
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.
For convenience, some of these operators can also be abbreviated using commonly used symbols:
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.
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
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.
This query looks for all documents that contain the words 'devonian' and 'dinosaurs'.
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.
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'. |