Wiki: Search Page Help

This page gives a quick overview of the search engine query syntax. This page is called Search Page Help.

Use '+' to require a word, '-' to forbid a word. For example:

          +java -emacs jsp

finds pages that MUST include the word "java", and MAY NOT include the word "emacs". Also, pages that contain the word "jsp" are ranked before the pages that don't.

All searches are case insensitive. If a page contains both forbidden and required keywords, it is not shown.

Query syntax table#

For more info look at Lucene's query syntax.

term	find a single Term is easy	`hello`
"..."	find a group of words	`"hello dolly"`
?	any single character (the ? can not be the 1st character of a search)	`te?t`
*	any multiple character (the * can not be the 1st character of a search)	`test*`
OR	match document if either of the terms exist	`"hello dolly" hello` `"hello dolly" OR hello`
AND	match documents where both terms exists	`"hello dolly" AND "dolly lucy"`
+	requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist	`+hello dolly`
- NOT	exclude documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol exclude also supported with NOT or !	`"hello dolly" -"dolly lucy"` `"hello dolly" NOT "dolly lucy"`
(...)	use parentheses to form sub queries	`(hello OR dolly) AND website`
~	fuzzy searchs to match terms similar in spelling	`roam`
~n	proximity search, within a distance expressed in number of words	`"hello dolly"~10`
^n	boost factor to increase importance in a search	`"hello dolly"^4 "dolly lucy"`
\	escape special characters: *+ - && \|\| ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ? : \**	`\(1\+1\)\:2` to find (1+1):2

You can restrict the search domain by prefixing your query:

author:term	find pages modified by certain author(s)	`author:~JohnFoo`
attachment:term	find pages with certain attachment name	`attachment:brushed*`
name:term	find pages with certain page name	`name:Main`
content:term	find pages with certain content	`content:jspwiki`