The Search Engine

Topics

• Using the Search Engine
• Finding a word on a page
• Entering a search request (using wildcards)
• Advanced requests

Using the Search Engine

Once the Search button is enabled - indicating that the database has been loaded, enter your request, see entering a search request, in the 'Enter query:' box, (you may have to click in the box first, before the cursor appears), then press the Search button.

On terminating the search, all resulting documents are listed in the results box. If no matching documents were found, a message appears to this effect. The results list is ordered by the number of word hits, that is, the number of matching words in the document, from the highest to the lowest. Double clicking on any of the documents listed will cause the browser to load that document. Obviously, to continue searching after loading another document, you must first return to this page.

Finding a word on a page

Once a page is displayed by the search engine use the web-browser's search tool to find the word on the page. Press Cntrl-F to start the web-browsers search tool.

Entering a search request

A search request consists of words and boolean operators. Don't be frightened by the terminology, you don't need a degree in Computer Science to use this applet. All words are case insensitive, which means that Hello is the same as HELLO is the same as hElLo. The Boolean operators are the following, and they all have the same meaning in English as their mathematical meaning:

1. AND. Use the symbol '+' or '&'. Notice that the word 'AND' can not be used.
   Search for all occurrences of one word AND another word. Documents which have only the one, or only the other, or neither, are excluded.
2. OR. Use the symbol '-' or '|. Notice that the word 'OR' can not be used.
   Search for all occurrences of one word OR the other word. Documents which have neither word are excluded.
3. NOT. Use the symbol '!'. Notice that the word 'NOT' can not be used
   Search for all occurrences of any word except the given word. Documents which have the given word are excluded.

In addition there is the wild-card (symbol '*') which means "and ending with anything", for example, word* could be word, or words, or wordsworth, etc.

For the Computer Scientists; more than one operation can be applied, though they are implemented as read, from left to right, that is, they have equal precedence and left associativity.

Let's try a few examples, you've found a space agency site, and you want something about the Sputnik or Sputnic or ... how is that word spelled? Type:

Sputnik | Sputnic
  

which means "search for the word Sputnik OR Sputnic". You could also try using the wild-card, thus:

Sputni*
  

which means "search for anything beginning with Sputni". After all you may not be the only one who doesn't know the correct spelling - my money's on Sputnik, however.

Now let's say you're looking at an animal interest site, and you want to find something on birds, or bees, but not lions. You would type:

bird* | bee* & !lion*
  

which means "anything beginning with bird OR anything beginning with bee AND NOT anything beginning with lion".

Advanced requests

You can fine tune your search, specifying where the engine should look by selecting one or more of the radio buttons above the results panel.

• The title button searches words within the <TITLE> of the document.
• The headings button searches words within standard HTML heading tags, <H1..H6>, or <CAPTION>.
• The lists button searches words within standard HTML list tags, <DT> or <LI>.
• The body button searches words not in title, heading or list tags.

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