Search Help

Search Pages

There are three search pages:

By default, searches in WebSearch and WebSearchAdvanced are keyword based like in a typical search engine:

Specify word(s) you want to find
Multiple words form an AND search, intranet web service returns all pages that have the three words anywhere in the page
Optionally specify plus signs for AND search, like intranet +web +service
Enclose words in double quotes to form a literal search, like "web service"
Specify a minus sign to exclude a word, like soap -shampoo
Use double quotes if you want to search for a leading minus sign, like "-nowarn"
Stop words are excluded from a keyword search:
- Stop words are common words and characters such as "how" and "where", defined in the SEARCHSTOPWORDS setting in the TWikiPreferences
- If you want to search for a word in the stop word list, prefix the word with a plus sign
Example: To search for all topics that contain "SOAP", "WSDL", a literal "web service", but not "shampoo",
enter this: soap +wsdl "web service" -shampoo

A regular expression search in WebSearchAdvanced searches for a set of regular expression patterns:

Patterns are separated by semicolons
An AND search is performed for the list of patterns
An exclamation point preceeding a pattern indicates an AND NOT search; use it to exclude a pattern, like !web service
If you want to search for a semicolon or an exclamation point, escape them with a leading backslash, like \!shampoo
Example: To search for all topics that contain "SOAP", "WSDL", a literal "web service", but not "shampoo",
enter this: soap;wsdl;web service;!shampoo

You can embed a nicely formatted search in a topic by using the %SEARCH{}% variable described in VarSEARCH. Searches can be of different types; among others, TWiki offers keyword search, regular expression search and a flexible SQL-like query language.

TWikiPreferences defines these search preferences:

SEARCHDEFAULTTYPE: Default search type for search forms which calls the search script
- Currently keyword
SEARCHVARDEFAULTTYPE: Default search type for %SEARCH{} variable
- Currenty literal
SEARCHSTOPWORDS: List of stop words (common words and characters to exclude from a keyword search)
- Currently a, all, am, an, and, any, as, at, b, be, by, c, d, e, for, from, g, h, how, i, i'm, i.e., in, is, isn't, it, it's, its, j, k, l, m, n, o, of, on, or, p, q, r, s, t, that, that's, the, this, to, u, v, w, was, wasn't, what, what's, when, where, who, who's, will, with, x, y, z