Search Operators

Kahua indexes most of the attributes and data entry fields entered by end users and makes the content available via the Search app and individual list searches. Attribute types that are not searchable include Integers, Dates and Currency attributes. Kahua search supports the following operators:

KEYWORDS

After filtering the search criteria by a column header, searching on a single term keyword will find any hits that contain the keyword anywhere within the area being searched.  For example:

Searching on 123 will find any document containing "123", including 123, 0123, 1234, etc.  

Searching on drain will find any document containing "drain", including drain, drains, drainage, undrained, etc.  

Searching on multiple keywords (phrase) without any operators will include hits on any of the keywords using an implied OR Boolean operator.  For example:

Searching on air quality will find documents containing both air and quality, including air quality, quality assurance, air handler, etc.

Use the Boolean AND operator from below for results that include all keywords.  Use double quotes to find the same words in the same order as the keywords inside the quotes.  Multiple terms and phrases can be combined together to form a more complex query (see below).

WILDCARDS

Kahua utilizes wildcards at the beginning and end of single term keywords, and therefore, wildcards are supported on single term keywords.  It will be necessary to prepend a * to the front of the text being searched for if it is in the middle of the string when searching for an item like in the View Log filter.

  Example:  You will need to search for *9163 if you want it to find items that have "KPO000009163 ATI Security".

BOOLEAN OPERATORS

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators including AND, OR and +.  Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS

AND
The AND operator matches where all keywords exist anywhere in the text of a record.  To search for records that must contain both "test flight" and airplane, use:

   

"test flight" AND airplane

 

OR

The OR operator matches where either of keywords exist anywhere in the text of a record.  When no operators are used, the OR is inferred.  To search for records that contain either tooth or teeth, use:
 

   

Option 1:
tooth OR teeth

Option 2:
tooth teeth

   

+

The + operator requires that the keyword after the + symbol exists somewhere within the record.  To search for records that must contain coffee but may contain java, use:
 

+coffee java

     Note:  do not include a space after the + symbol

 

GROUPING OPERATORS

Search supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.  To search for either "tooth" or "teeth" and "coffee" use:

 

(tooth OR teeth) AND coffee

FUZZY SEARCH

To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a single word term. To search for a term similar in spelling to "roam", such as foam and roams, use:

roam~

 

 PROXIMITY SEARCH

Search supports finding words are a within a specific distance away. To do a proximity search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a phrase. To search for takeoff and estimate within 10 words of each other in a record use:

 

"takeoff estimate"~10

 

IGNORING SEARCH OPERATORS

When intending to search for special characters in your content rather than use them as search operators, use a backslash, "\", to ignore special characters + - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \  as operators.  To search for (1+1), use:

   

\(1\+1\)