Search Instructions:

The ADL Registry allows for users to search for various types of content that have been previously registered with the ADL Registry. Below are some basic instructions for creating a search query.

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Terms
A query is broken up into terms and operators. There are two types of terms: Single Terms and Phrases.
· A Single Term is a single word such as data or test.
· A Phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes such as "test data".
Multiple terms can be combined with Boolean operators to form more complex queries (see below).
Capitalization is not important in terms. Searches for Water and water will find exactly the same items.

Fields
By default, the ADL Registry performs a general text search. The term or set of terms represented in the query are used to search every field within the metadata. Sometimes you may want to limit your search ro a specific field. Using these specific fields will limit the search of the ADL Registry to only the field identified. This type of search will ultimately limit the number of matches and return results that specifically meet the query.
You can search a specific field by typing the field name followed by a colon ":", followed by the term you are looking for. If no field is specified then the text field is searched by default.

Syntax: <field>:“term”

Examples:
keyword:“water”
title:“water”

The following specific fields are searchable through the ADL Registry
· identifier
· keyword
· description
· title
· version
· status
· entity
· metadataschema
· format
· purpose
· taxonpath
· datemodified (must be in a lucene date format)
· text (contains the title, keywords, description, purpose and any field that were not listed above

Wildcard Searches
The ADL Registry supports both single and multiple character Wildcard Searches.
Syntax: To perform a single character wildcard search use the “?” symbol in place of the character in question.
The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match that with the single character replaced. For example, to search for "ship" or "shop" you can use the search:

Example:
sh?p

Syntax: To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the “*” symbol in place of the characters in question
Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for ship, ships or shipping, you can use the search:

Example:
ship*

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

Fuzzy Searches
The ADL Registry supports Fuzzy Searches. Fuzzy Searches allow for searching the ADL Registry for terms similar in spelling to the term in questions.
Syntax: To perform a Fuzzy Search use the “~” symbol at the end of a Single Term.
For example, to search for a term similar in spelling to "book" use the fuzzy search:

Example:
book~

This search will find terms like cook and books.

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Proximity Searches
The ADL Registry support Proximity Searches. A Proximity Search is a search for words which appear within a specific distance of each other.

Syntax: To perform a Proximity Search use the “~” followed by a number that represents the number of words within each other. This type of search requires multiple terms.

For example, to search for "coffee" and "tea" within 5 words of each other in a document use the search:

Example:
"coffee tea"~5

Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. The following logical operators are supported:

· AND
· OR
· NOT
· "-"
· "+"

Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS.

AND Operator
The AND operator matches content where both terms are present anywhere in the text of a single document. The symbol “&&” can be used in place of the word AND.

Syntax:
· <term1> AND <term2>
· <term1> && <term2>

Example: For example, to search for content that contain "coffee cake" and "tea cup" use the query:
· "coffee cake" AND "tea cup", or
· "coffee cake" && "tea cup"

OR Operator
The OR operator is the default operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms are present. The symbol “||” can be used in place of the word OR.

Syntax:
· <term1> OR <term2>
· <term1> || <term2>

Example: For example, to search for documents that contain either "coffee cake" or just "cake" use the query:
· "coffee cake" OR "cake", or
· "coffee cake" || "tea cup", or
· “coffee cake” cake

NOT Operator
The NOT operator excludes content that contain the term after NOT. The symbol “!” can be used in place of the word NOT.

Syntax:
· NOT <term1>

Example: For example, to search for documents that contain "coffee cake" but not "tea" use the query:
· "coffee cake" NOT “tea”, or
· "coffee cake" | “tea”

“+” Operator
The "+" Operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol be present somewhere in a field of a single document.

Syntax:
· +<term1>

Example: For example, to search for documents that must contain "coffee" and may contain "tea" use the query:
· +coffee tea

“-” Operator
The "-" Operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.

Syntax:
· -<term1>
Example: For example, to search for documents that contain "coffee " but not "cake" use the query:
· “coffee” –“cake”

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Grouping
The ADL Registry supports grouping of clauses to form complex queries. Parentheses can be used to group clauses to form sub-queries. This type of query is useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.

Example: For example, to search for either "coffee" or "tea" and "cake" use the query:
(coffee OR tea) AND cake
This eliminates any confusion and makes sure you that cake must exist and either term coffee or tea may exist.

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Escaping Special Characters
Special characters that are part of the query syntax must be escaped in order to properly query the ADL Registry. The “\” character is used to escape the special characters.
The current list special characters are
· +
· -
· &&
· ||
· !
· (
· )
· {
· }
· [
· ]
· ^
· "
· ~
· *
· ?
· :
· \

Example: For example to search for (1+1):2 use the query:
\(1\+1\)\:2