IBM FileNet P8, Version 5.1.+            

Content conditions

A content search returns documents that contain the text you specify. To do this, the documents must have been indexed. Check with your system administrator to see if documents in your object stores are indexed. The results can be ranked if you choose that option in the Search Designer options.

A content search finds words and phrases in the content of a document or its properties or both, depending on how your object store components are indexed. If the properties are indexed, your administrator determines which properties go into the indexed collection.

Property values must be formatted as text strings, not as numbers or dates. You do not specify the location of the text (content or properties). If the words appear in either area, the search finds the document. See Select object type for tips on creating Content searches.

Note:  
  • There are differences in how search works, depending on the search engine you are using. If you are running IBM® Legacy Content Search Engine, the search and search results will display differently than in IBM® Content Search Services.
  • < and > is not supported in content searches.
  • Folders are excluded from content searches, so the content grid does not appear if you select Folder only from the object types panel.

For content searches, you complete the View, Words/Phrases, and Modifiers columns. (If you don't choose a modifier, "None" is entered by default.) For search templates, you can leave the Words/Phrases column blank (unless View is set to Hidden or Read Only). See View Column for definitions of each View option.

Words/Phrases column

Enter one or more words in the Words/Phrases column. The words can contain special characters.

Search for a single word

Simply entering one word as your search criteria causes the search engine to find various forms of that word (stemmed variations). Stemming is not used if you are using all capital letters in your search.

You can disable stemming and require matching capitalization using double quotes, look for patterns using * as a wildcard character, or exclude a word using ! at the beginning. See samples in the following tables.

Note: Stemming occurs automatically with IBM® Content Search Services.
IBM Content Search Services
Desired search condition Enter in Words/ Phrases field Choose modifier
Search for a single word with the exact spelling. "Word" None
Search for a single word without regard for case. word None
Search for stemmed versions of a single word. word None
Search for a word pattern using a wildcard character. See Using a wildcard character to the right. w*d None
Exclude documents that have this word. !word None
IBM Legacy Content Search Engine
Desired search condition Enter in Words/ Phrases field Choose modifier
Search for a single word with the exact spelling and case-sensitivity. "Word" None
Search for a single word without regard for case. word None
Search for stemmed versions of a single word. word None
Search for a word pattern using a wildcard character. See Using a wildcard character to the right. w*d None
Exclude documents that have this word. !word None

Search for word combinations

When you enter two or more words, you can specify a relationship between those words.

IBM Content Search Services
Desired search condition Enter in Words/ Phrases field Choose modifier
Search for a phrase with the exact spelling. "Asian leaf frog" None
Search for words located near each other. See Notes® below. You cannot use double quotation marks with Near. frog toad Near
Search for any of the specified words or phrases. "Costa Rican" flying tree frog Any
Search for all of the specified words or phrases. frog chorus song All
IBM Legacy Content Search Engine
Desired search condition Enter in Words/ Phrases field Choose modifier
Search for a phrase with the exact spelling and case-sensitivity. "Asian leaf frog" None
Search for words located near each other. See Notes below. frog toad Near
Search for words located in the same sentence. See Notes below. shed skin Sentence
Search for words located in the same paragraph. See Notes below. color camouflage Paragraph
Search for any of the specified words or phrases. "Costa Rican" flying tree frog Any
Search for all of the specified words or phrases. frog chorus song All
Search for one or more words in an HTML or XML tag. (e.g., Header). See Notes below. Malformed Frogs In Zone : Header
Note:
  • For IBM Legacy Content Search Engine only: Your object stores can be configured to use either Near or Sentence and Paragraph (Near is the default). Because Search Designer cannot tell how your object stores have been indexed, all options appear in the Modifiers list. If your site uses Near, Sentence and Paragraph act like Near. If the specified object stores use Sentence and Paragraph, then Near operates like Sentence and Paragraph. The words will qualify if they do not cross a sentence or paragraph boundary.
  • By default, Near is defined as words within 1024 words of each other.
  • For IBM Legacy Content Search Engine only: When you choose In Zone, a dialog box requests the name of the XML/HTML Zone name (often called a tag). You need to know what tags are used in your documents to take advantage of the faster search in only that part of the document.

Using Content-Based Searches

If you know the language for the content-based search you are using, you can enter the complete structured query in the Words/Phrases field and choose the query language as the modifier. Your text will be passed to the search engine without checking or modification of any kind. You must know how your collections are configured so you use only the appropriate operators.

Using logical operators

Another way to specify relationships between words is to enter search terms using two or more rows in the grid. Then specify AND or OR as the logical operator between the rows. Enter conditions in the appropriate order so you can specify the proper relationships (AND or OR) between contiguous rows. If necessary, use the Insert a Row and Delete a Row buttons, along with copy and paste, to move existing rows. To specify the relationship between contiguous rows, highlight them and click the And or Or buttons. See Condition relationships. Also see the text to the right on Multiple words or multiple rows.

Common (stop) words

By default, the search engine does not look for certain common words, called stop words. When the index is built, the stop words are not added to the collection so they can never be found.

Stop words differ by locale. You can get the list of stop words for your country from your system administrator.

If one or more words in your search requires a stop word, such as when you use the All or Near modifiers or the AND operator between lines, the search will fail, because these words will never appear in the index. See Search Engine Stop Words for a list of the English stop words.

When are documents indexed?

As users add documents to object stores, the search engine indexes them. If many users are adding documents at the same time, there could be a delay before the text and properties of some documents appear in the object store's index (called a collection). If a search does not find a document that has just been added, try the search a little later.

Word stemming

Word stemming selects documents that include one or more variations of the search word you specify. For example, entering "film" returns documents containing films, filmed, filming, etc. This option is used by default when you do not use double-quotes around words.

Using a wildcard character

Use an asterisk (*) to stand for zero or more letters, numbers, or underscore ( _ ) characters. For example, word* would find word or words.

Multiple words or multiple rows?

Entering two words in one row with the All modifier is the same as entering two rows in the grid and connecting them with the AND operator. Similarly, using the Any modifier with multiple words on one row is the same as using OR with multiple rows in the grid.

Note: If you use two or more rows connected with AND, the user must include something on at least two rows.

Also if you use two or more words on one row with Near, the user must keep two or more words in that row. If you use All, the user can leave only one word in the row.

The search engine sees hyphenated words as two separate words.



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Last updated: July 2011


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