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Boolean Operators

Search terms are case insensitive. They can be combined with the following case sensitive boolean operators:

• NOT - Exclude results containing a term. For example: NOT foo
• OR - Include results containing either terms. For example: foo OR bar
• AND - Include results containing all terms. For example: foo AND bar (default action)

Search terms with a NOT operator in front will be evaluated first (highest precedence), followed by terms with an OR operator, then finally terms with an AND operator. Since the AND operator is the default action, it can be omitted between search terms:

• foo bar ≡ foo AND bar
• foo OR bar foobar ≡ foo OR bar AND foobar

Specifying NOT immediately before OR and AND is permitted. Such combinations are functionally equivalent as follows:

• foo NOT OR bar ≡ foo OR NOT bar
• foo NOT AND bar ≡ foo AND NOT bar ≡ foo NOT bar

Specifying OR and AND together does not make much sense. In such cases the AND operator will be ignored, because the OR operator has a higher precedence:

• foo OR AND bar ≡ foo AND OR bar ≡ foo OR bar

Duplicate operators will be treated as one:

• foo AND AND bar ≡ foo AND bar
• foo OR OR bar ≡ foo OR bar

However, the same can not be said for the duplicate NOT operator, because NOT NOT will cancel:

• foo NOT NOT bar ≡ foo bar

Strings

To search for specific strings, use quotation marks:

• "foo bar"

Search strings can be used with boolean operators:

• "foo bar" OR foobar
• "foo bar" AND foobar
• NOT "foo bar" AND foobar

Boolean operators have no effect inside string quotation marks, they are treated as part of the search string:

• "foo OR bar"

Wild Cards

To match results with partial terms, use the asterisk symbol:

• foo* will match foobar, food, etc.
• *bar will match foobar, crowbar, etc.
• computeri*e will match computerise, computerize, etc.
• colo*r will match colour, color, etc.

Wild cards can be also used to match partial words in strings:

• "foo* bar" will match "foo bar", "food bar", etc.
• "at * food bar" will match "at the food bar", "at my food bar", etc.

The wild card will only match letters, digits, or the underscore character in the partial word.