You use special characters to search when you do not know
the entire value that you are searching for or when you want to specify
the type of information that you are searching for.
You use wildcard characters to search for a partial value
when you do not know the entire value. You place the wildcard where
the unknown characters occur. You can use more than one wildcard character
in a single search.
Examples of how to use wildcard characters
| Wildcard |
Usage |
Examples |
|---|
| * or % |
Substitutes for a string of characters |
- 123* or 123% find records that start with 123, such as 123, 12345,
and 123ABC.
- *123 or %123 find records that end in 123, such as 123, 5123,
and PUMP123.
- *123* or %123% find records that contain 123, such as 123, 1234,
PUMP123, or XX12300Valve.
|
| ? or _ |
Substitutes for a single character |
- 123? or 123_ find any four-character records that start with 123,
such as 1234, 1230, 123g,
- _18 or ?18 find any three-character records that end with 18,
such as 418 or J18.
|
An operator is a special type of symbol that you use to specify
the type of information that you are searching for. You can only use
operators in fields with a search type of TEXT such as Description
fields.
Operators used to define searches
| Operator |
Operator action |
Use |
|---|
| ampersand (&) |
And |
Find records that contain at least one occurrence
of all of your query terms. The operator must be placed between two
query terms. |
| hyphen (-) |
Minus |
Find records that contain one query term, but
you want the presence of your second query term to cause the document
to be ranked lower in the result set. The operator must be placed
between two query terms. |
| pipe (|) |
Or |
Find records that contain at least one occurrence
of any of your query terms. The operator must be placed between two
query terms. |
| semicolon (;) |
End of SQL command line |
Indicate the end of a SQL command line. |
| tilde (~) |
Not |
Find records that contain one query term and
not another. The operator must be placed between two query terms. |
| equals (=) |
Exact match |
Find records that are an exact match to your
query. For example, filtering records with a status of "APPR" also
returns records that have a status of "WAPPR" unless you type "=APPR"
in the status field. |
| ~null~ |
Missing or unknown data in fields that are not
text search enabled |
Because a null operator indicates a lack of
data, searching for null values is different from searching for other
values. When using the List tab or the Advanced Search or More Search
Fields dialog box to search for records containing null values, you
use the following syntax: - To search for records that contain a NULL value for a field enter
~null~
- To search for records that do not contain a null value for a field
enter =~null~
When searching for null values using the WHERE Clause dialog
box you use the SQL comparison values IS NULL and IS NOT NULL to select
and compare null values. |