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Searching in the information center

To search topics in the information center, enter a query in the Search field and click GO. The Search Results view displays the top 500 ranked results.

Select a search result to display that topic in the right side of the information center. The words from your query are highlighted in the displayed topic. The result page will automatically scroll to make the first occurrence visible.

To switch on and off the highlighting on the query terms, click the Highlight button (Highlight icon).

To toggle between the Contents view and the Search Results view, click the Contents tab (Contents icon) or the Search Results tab (Search Results icon) at the bottom of the Navigation pane on the left side of the information center.

Searches are not case-sensitive.

Searching for exact words or phrases

You can identify a search phrase as an exact string by enclosing it in double quotation marks (“). For example, the query “log file” searches for the two-word phrase log file, not the separate words log and file. Without the quotation marks, the search term is interpreted to find instances of both the word log and the word file in the topics.

In English and German only, the search engine stems other forms of a single search word. For example, a search for the word challenge, will also find the word challenging. Surround the terms that you enter in the search field with double quotation marks (“) when you do not want your search results to include such variations of the terms.

Searching with wildcard characters

You can use the following wildcard characters:
  • Asterisk (*) represents multiple unknown characters in the term. For example, the search term par* returns partly, participate, partial, and other words beginning with par.
  • Question mark (?) represents a single unknown character. For example, the search term par? returns part but not partial or partly.
Restriction: Wildcard characters can be used only in the middle or end of search strings. They are not supported when they appear at the beginning of a search string, such as *XXXX or ?XXXX.

Searching with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)

You can insert the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT in your search term.
Table 1. Examples of search terms with Boolean operators
Search term Results
database AND "log file" Narrows the search to include topics that must contain both the term database and the phrase log file anywhere in the document.
database OR "log file" Expands the search to include topics that contain either the term database or the phrase log file anywhere in the document.
database NOT "log file" Searches for topics that contain database and that do not contain the phrase log file anywhere in the document.
database OR "data base" NOT "log file" Searches for documents that contain either the term database or the phrase data base and that do not contain the phrase log file anywhere in the document.


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Last updated: September 2012
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