Modifiers


Modifiers are used in conjunction with operators to change the standard behavior of an operator in some way. When specified, a modifier changes the standard behavior of an operator in some way. For example, you can use the CASE modifier with an operator to specify that the case of the search word you enter be considered a search element as well.

The following table briefly describes each modifier. For examples and more detailed descriptions, see Chapter 4, "Modifiers."

Modifier
Description
CASE
Performs a case-sensitive search.
MANY
Incorporates the density of search words in the calculation of the relevance-ranked score.
NOT
Excludes documents containing the words or phrases.
ORDER
Specifies the order in which search elements much occur in the document.
Two syntax formats are used to specify modifiers with operators.

The first format specifies the modifier name before the operator name, as shown in the table below. This format is valid for all four types of modifiers. Certain operators are valid only with certain modifiers.

Modifier
Valid Operators
Examples
CASE
WORD
WILDCARD

<CASE><WORD> iMac
MANY
WORD
WILDCARD
STEM
SOUNDEX
PHRASE
SENTENCE
PARAGRAPH
THESAURUS

<MANY><WORD> virtual
NOT
all operators
cat <AND> dog <AND> <NOT> pet
ORDER
PARAGRAPH
SENTENCE
NEAR/N
ALL

president <ORDER> <PARAGRAPH> washington <ORDER> <SENTENCE> ("president", "washington")
The second syntax format specifies the operator name before the modifier name, as shown in the following table. This syntax is valid only for the CASE and NOT modifiers.

Modifier
Valid Operators
Examples
CASE
WORD
WILDCARD
CONTAINS
MATCHES
STARTS
ENDS
SUBSTRING

author <CONTAINS/CASE>Don
NOT
all operators
author<CONTAINS/NOT>don
author<STARTS/NOT>xxx





Copyright © 2001, Verity, Inc. All rights reserved.