When supporting Documentum, we often got complaining from users like “The search is not working” or “I cannot find my document”.
The first reflex is to verify if the xPlore is working properly. The second reflex is to perform a search test but all is working correctly.
Then we contact user to get more details about his search.
Sometimes the only problem is that user does not use the search properly. Indeed the Documentum search use its “own” language with wildcard and the user just don’t use the right syntax.
Here I propose to set a kind of Rosetta stone which make the link between Human and xPlore language.
Ready to “talk” with the Full Text ?
Let’s start !
Search comprehension:
A word: this is a set of alphanumeric characters in between space characters.
A wildcard character: this is a kind of placeholder represented by a single character, such as an asterisk [ * ], takes the place of any other single character or a string or zero charactere.
Search with one word and quotation marks [ ” ” ]
When user type in search field |
Dsearch understand | Will match | Will NOT match |
“word1” | “word1”: Here Fulltext will search for an exact match of terms contained between the quotation marks | word1 | word word11 xword1 |
Search with one word
When user type in search field |
Dsearch understands | Will match | Will NOT match |
word1 | “word1*” Here FullText add an asterisk [ * ] at the end of the word which matches single character or a string or zero character. And quotation marks are also automatically added at the beginning and the end of the word. |
word1 word1A word14A word132 |
word wo rword 1word word4A |
Search with one word and wildcard question marks [ ? ]
When user type in search field |
Dsearch understands | Will match | Will NOT match |
word1? | “word1?” Here Fulltext will replace the question mark [ ? ] with zero or one single character. And quotation marks are also automatically added at the beginning and the end of the word. |
word1 word11 word12 word1a word1x … |
word word123 xword11 |
Search with one word and wildcard star [ * ]
When user type in search field |
Dsearch understands | Will match | Will NOT match |
word1* | “word1*” The asterisk [ * ] matches single character or a string or zero character. And quotation marks are also automatically added at the beginning and the end of the word. |
word1 word12 word12a word1x2b … |
word word1 |
Search with several words
When user type in search field |
Dsearch understands | Will match | Will NOT match |
word1 word2 | “word1*” OR “word2*” The [ space ] between two words is translated as “OR“. The rule “1) search with one word” is applied for each word |
word1 OR word2 word1A word14A word132 word2 word2A word24A word232 … |
xword1 OR xword2 |
Search with several words and quotation marks
When user type in search field |
Dsearch understands | Will match | Will NOT match |
“word1 word2” | “word1 word2” Here Fulltext will search for an exact match of terms contained within the quotation mark |
word1 word2 | word1 OR word2 word1 AND xword2 xword1 AND word2 |
Search with several words and [+] character
When user type in search field |
Dsearch understands | Will match | Will NOT match |
word1 + word2 | “word1*” AND “word2*” Here combination of word [ space ][ + ]word is translated as “AND“. The rule “1) search with one word” is applied for each word Note: Search can be combined with several [+] word1 +word2 +word3 |
word1 AND word2 word1 AND word2x word1x AND word2 word1x AND word2x |
word1 word2 xword1 AND word2 word1 AND xword2 |
These are the basic search “tips” mostly out of the box, be aware these search behaviors can be customized with some parameters modifications.
My advice is “Abuse quotation marks ¨” 😉
I hope this has been helpfull !