Our search engine uses set logic instead of Boolean logic. Set
logic provides the user a more understandable and powerful group of
operations. In the search there are five types of sets:
- A set of words or phrases (generally having the same meaning)
- The set of patterns that match a wildcard expression
- The set of quantities that match a specified value range
- The set of patterns which approximate a given template (fuzzy set)
- The set of patterns that match a given Regular Expression
Each set inherently 'OR-s' together all of its members. A
concept search looks for "Middle East" OR "Kuwait"
OR "Libya" OR "Saudi Arabia" if each is a member of
the set "Middle East".
"AND" as Default Logic Within a Query
The default logic for more than one search item expressed in any query is
to 'AND' together the 'OR-ed' members of each set.
If you enter the query: '#>10 brown cows', the program will search
with the following Boolean logic equivalent:
( (11 or 12 or 13....) AND (cows OR cattle OR herd...) AND
(amber OR auburn OR bay OR bronze OR chestnut OR chocolate OR cinnamon
OR drab... ) ) WITHIN A SENTENCE.
"NOT" (-) Logic for Exclusion
If you wish to only find non-brown cows you may use the 'NOT'
operator '-' in the form: '#>10 -brown cows'. This will
result in the boolean equivalent of:
( ( ( 11 or 12 or 13....) AND ( cows OR cattle OR herd...) ) AND
NOT ( amber OR auburn OR bay OR bronze OR chestnut OR chocolate OR
cinnamon OR drab... ) ) WITHIN A SENTENCE
"OR" Logic
The equivalent to the Boolean 'OR' is available via
two methods. The first (and most common) is to simply enter a word or
phrase and let the Thesaurus build the list of OR-ed terms. The
second method is to place the entire set of terms within parentheses
separated by commas; i.e.: '(a,b,c)'. The advantage of using
the Thesaurus method is that once you have built a set list you never
have to do it again.
"X of Y" Logic
The 'X of Y' (permutation) operator has no Boolean counterpart,
and is one of the more powerful benefits of set logic. Its purpose is
to find sets of things in combination.
Let's say we want to find meetings between any three of the following
people: Clinton, Foster, Myers, Yeltsin, Mubarak, and Dole. To
phrase this as a query for our search engine you would simply type: "@2
Clinton Foster Myers Yeltsin Mubarak Dole". This means "Find 2
intersections of any of the sets."
If we were to attempt that query in Boolean, we would be typing all
day, and even then probably would never get there:
(Clinton AND Foster AND Myers) OR (Clinton AND Foster AND Yeltsin)
OR (Clinton AND Foster AND Mubarak) OR (Clinton AND Foster AND Dole)
OR (Clinton AND Foster AND Dole) OR (Clinton AND Yeltsin AND Myers) OR
(Clinton AND Mubarak AND Myers) OR (Clinton AND Dole AND Myers) OR
(AND ON AND ON.......)
"Mandatory" (+) Inclusion Logic
The '+' (Mandatory) operator is usually used in conjunction with
the '@X' operator. It means "This set must be there". For
example, if we wanted to know if "Clinton" met with any two of
the other people in the last example, we would enter the query:
"+Clinton @1 Foster Myers Yeltsin Mubarak Dole". So "Clinton"
must be there, along with 1 intersection of any 2 of the other
choices we listed.
More commonly, you'd want to designate one item that has to be there
with a '+' , and see that it is found occurring along with a
choice of some other items, where no intersections (@0) of
those are required. Like the query: "+Washington @0 politics
economics education" . This would find ideas matching either
politics or economics or education in
Washington.
Examples:
- john marsha
- finds: John AND Marsha
- ~bush ~growing -george
- finds: (Any meaning of: bush) AND (Any meaning of: growing) AND NOT George
- software sales -~microsoft
- software AND sales AND NOT (Any meaning of: Microsoft)
- +~transfer +~stock +#>0<1 @1 ibm motorola microsoft dell compaq
- (All meanings of: transfer) AND (All meanings of: stock) AND
(All quantities that represent positive fractions) AND (ANY TWO OF:
ibm, motorola, microsoft, dell, compaq )