SPARKS Searching Quick Reference Guide

  • Document ID:KM0001
  • Creation Date:22-Jul-2009
  • Modified Date:06-Apr-2018

Summary

Provides tips and tricks and examples of search options for the SPARKS Knowledgebase Advanced Search Screen jubilee

Reference

Field
Logic
What are you searching for

This field performs a natural language search which means it searches for documents that contain 

1) matches for the exact word(s) entered and
2) related stems of the entered words (plurals, different verb tenses, etc) and
3) synonyms of the provided words based on a built-in, customizable thesaurus

The computed document relevance is a complex representation of the density of matching words, stems and synonyms in the document. The higher the number of matching words relative to the length of each candidate document, the higher the relevance.
Case-sensitivity This field is not case-sensitive
Special characters words containing punctuation (hyphen, dot, etc) are split and interpreted as 2 separate words.
For example the search string OpC50-100 will submit a query for OpC50, and its stems and synonyms along with 100 and its stems and synonyms.
Double-quotes (“) It is possible to avoid stemming and the thesaurus and force search strings to include punctuation by enclosing a search string in double-quotes.
For instance the search string “OpC50-100” will yield a search query strictly for the OpC50-100 string with no stemming, no synonym logic and no word-breaking at the embedded hyphen punctuation.
Logical operators Logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) are NOT supported in this field.  These capablities are provided in different fields on the advanced search screen discussed below.
Pattern matching wildcards are supported. 
? matches a single character. 
* matches many characters. 
All of these words
This field delivers SPARKS' AND functionality
This field seeks documents that contain all listed words, stems or synonyms.  If even one supplied term is missing (considering all its stem forms and synonyms) from a document, then that document will not return in the search.
Case-sensitivity - This field is non case-sensitive.
Logical operators
The AND operator is automatically applied.
Other logical operators (OR, NOT) are NOT supported in this field.
Pattern matching wildcards are supported. 
? matches a single character. 
* matches many characters.
This exact phrase
This field is an alternative to enclosing a portion of your search string in double quotes. 
This field seeks documents that contain all listed words adjacent to each other and sequentially.  No stemming or synonyms are considered.
Case-sensitivity - This field is non case-sensitive.
Logical operators
No logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) are supported in this field.
Pattern matching wildcards are not supported in this field. 
Any of these words
This field delivers SPARKS' OR functionality

This field seeks documents that contain at least one of the listed words, stems or synonyms.  Unlike the 'All of these words' field, it is expected that some matching documents will not contain some of the sought terms, their stems or synonyms.

Case-sensitivity - This field is non case-sensitive.
Logical operators
The OR operator is automatically applied. Other logical operators (AND, NOT) are NOT supported in this field.
Pattern matching wildcards are supported. 
? matches a single character. 
* matches many characters.
None of these words
This field delivers SPARKS' NOT functionality
This field matches documents that do NOT contain any words listed, their stems or synonyms.
Case-sensitivity - This field is non case-sensitive.
Logical operators
The NOT operator is automatically applied. Other logical operators (AND, OR) are NOT supported in this field. Note: This field works best when used in conjunction with other previously mentioned fields.
Pattern matching wildcards are supported. 
? matches a single character. 
* matches many characters.
Combination of above fields
All of the above fields can be used in one or more combinations to define precise searches.
Example: getting errors after installation typed in the What are you searching for field with database in the All of these words field and oracle SQL in the None of these words field returns documents that relate to errors when installing and must have the word database and cannot contain the words oracle or SQL.
Search by Title
This is an exact phrase search, limited to just the title field.  AND and OR can also be used.
If you enter two consecutive words (not separated by AND or OR) they must appear sequentially in the title for the search to work.  If you do not know that your sought terms appear sequentially in the title, use AND to join them.
Case-sensitivity - This field is not case-sensitive.
Logical operators
Logical operators (AND) and (OR) are supported in this field.
Pattern matching wildcards are supported. 
? matches a single character. 
* matches many characters.
Stop Words
Very common words such as; it is a an the are ignored in the search syntax in all fields except for the exact match field. They are included in the exact phrase searches
 
Related information: