NUS LION: LINC Help : Truncation and Boolean

Truncation and Boolean

Wildcards

To match any single character in the specified position in the word, use ?.

E.g. wom?n will match both women and woman. The '?' wildcard may only appear after at least
     two characters.

To match up to five non-space characters, starting at the specified position in a word, use asterisk *.

E.g. inter* will match "internal" and "internet", but will not match "international".

     The * wildcard may also be embedded in a search string.

E.g. colo*r would match both color and colour.

    The * wildcard may only appear after at least two characters.

To match any number of non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word.

E.g. inter** will match all words that begin with inter (e.g., internal, nternet, international, etc.).

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Boolean Operators

Use the operators and, or, not, near, and within to refine the search or to override word adjacency (i.e. words appearing in the same order in a single field)

The and operator is used to retrieve records that contain all of the specified words or phrases.

E.g. fractal and geometry
The above expression will retrieve all records that contain both the words "fractal" and "geometry" in the same field or in different fields.
The word "geometry" might appear in the Subject field of a given record and the word "fractal" might appear in the Title field of the same record.

The or operator is used to retrieve records that contain at least one of the specified words or phrases.

E.g. cell or mobile would retrieve all records that contain either of these words in a field (though not necessarily in the same field together).

The not operator is used to modify the results produced by the other Boolean operators (it cannot be used by itself.

E.g. casino and not internet would retrieve records that contain the word "casinos", but do not contain the word "internet".

The near operator is used to retrieve records that contain the specified words or phrases within ten words of each other in the same indexed field.

E.g. commodif* near cultur* will only retrieve records that contain both "commodifying" or "commodification" and "culture" or "cultures" or "cultural" within ten words of one another in the same field. If these two words occur further apart in the same field or they appear in separate fields in a given record, then that record would not be retrieved.

The within operator is similar to the near operator, but allows the user to specify the maximum number of words that may appear between the specified words.

E.g. "fractal within 3 geometry" will only retrieve records that contain both "fractal" and "geometry" within three words of one another in the same field.
    Note that "fractal within 10 geometry" is equivalent to "fractal near geometry".

(...) (Parentheses)

    Parentheses are used to group word or phrases together.
    Parenthetical expressions can contain the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT. They can also be nested.

E.g. (islamic or mohammedan) law is equivalent to islamic law or mohammedan law. Note that parentheses are available if needed, but are not required in keyword searches.

Boolean operators and parenthesis can be used to refine your search in Simple and Advanced search.

E.g. family and (Singapore or Malaysia or Asia)

E.g. ((china or hong kong) and singapore) and trade and not law

E.g. ((american or english) and literature) and not (guide* or handbook*)

Use AND NOT with caution as it may remove relevant records.

Multiple words are searched as a phrase.

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Content by Last updated 16-07-2007