Simple queries allow end users to enter simple, comma-delimited strings and use wildcard characters. By default, a simple query searches for words, not strings. For example, entering the word "All" will find documents containing the word "all" but not "allegorical." You can use wildcards, however to broaden the scope of the search. "All*" will return documents containing both "all" and "alliterate." Case is ignored.
You can enter multiple words separated by commas: software, Microsoft, Oracle. The comma in a Simple query expression is treated like a logical OR. If you omit the commas, the query expression is treated as a phrase, so documents would be searched for the phrase "software Microsoft Oracle."
Ordinarily, operators are employed in explicit query expressions. Operators are normally surrounded by angle brackets < >. However, you can use the AND, OR, and NOT operators in a simple query without using angle brackets: software AND (Microsoft OR Oracle). To include an operator in a search, you surround it with double quotation marks: software "and" Microsoft. This expression searches for the phrase "software and Microsoft."
A simple query employs the STEM operator and the MANY modifier. STEM searches for words that derive from those entered in the query expression, so that entering "find" will return documents that contain "find," "finding," "finds," etc. The MANY modifier forces the documents returned in the search to be presented in a list based on a relevancy score.
Explicit queries can be constructed using a variety of operators, including evidence, proximity, relational, concept, and score operators. Most operators in an explicit query expression are surrounded by angle brackets < >. You can use the AND, OR, and NOT operators without angle brackets.
You can use either simple or explicit syntax when stating simple query syntax. The syntax you use determines whether the search words you enter will be stemmed, and whether the words that are found will contribute to relevance-ranked scoring.
When you use simple syntax, the search engine implicitly interprets single words as if they were modified by the MANY and STEM operators. By implicitly applying the MANY modifier, the search engine calculates each document's score based on the density of the search term in the searched documents. The more frequent the occurrence of a word in a document, the higher the document's score.
As a result, the search engine ranks documents according to word density as it searches for the word you specify, as well as words that have the same stem. For example, "films," "filmed," and "filming" are stemmed variations of the word "film." To search for documents containing the word "film" and its stem words, you can enter the word "film" without modification. When documents are ranked by relevance, they appear in a list with the most relevant documents at the top.
When you use explicit syntax, the search engine interprets the search terms you enter as literals. For example, by entering the word "film" (including quotation marks) using explicit syntax, the stemmed versions of the word "film", "films," "filmed," and "filming" are ignored.
The following table shows all operators available for conducting searches.
