Refining search

S

stanC

New Member
Mar 22, 2007
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Is it possible to refine a search with Boolean links. For example I searched for circuit AND basic but received links for circuit OR basic which was not what I wanted .
If not is it possible to search within a search

Regards
Stan
 
Thanks for the reply. I tried it again using the advanced search. I received replies with either circuit or basic but I want only replies with both key words. Perhaps I am writing incorrectly I wrote circuit AND basic in the search terms then tried circuit + basic but both gave the same results
 
stanC said:
Thanks for the reply. I tried it again using the advanced search. I received replies with either circuit or basic but I want only replies with both key words. Perhaps I am writing incorrectly I wrote circuit AND basic in the search terms then tried circuit + basic but both gave the same results
Click to expand...

I got posts with both words in them right away... granted - basic was a few lines separated from circuit, but both words were somewhere in the post... now if you are searching for "Basic Circuit" you have to format it like that with quotes :D

Also remember - this search engine will find "the post" with what you seek.... but it might be the 200th post in the thread. scroll down to the bottom of the search window and click on the "Show results as posts" button.

:D The first few will be from this thread.... the remaining posts will have both circuit and basic in the post - - but not together unless you put the quotes around (as per Boolian Searching)
 
I'm actually having the same problem as StanC. I'm looking for a thread I read maybe a year ago about installing a DCC decoder in an IHC steam loco. I tried an advanced search for the following:

ihc + decoder

I got 11 pages of results, but many of the threads do not have both key words. For example, one result was this thread:

http://forum.zealot.com/t117718/

Decoder appears in several posts, but there is not a single reference to IHC in the entire thread, all posts.

I tried the same search with ihc AND decoder, but got identical results.
No big deal, but it does appear that results are coming up as OR rather than AND searches. This does make it hard to reconstruct links to thread addresses that got changed during the server move.

-Joe
 
Ok, I played around with the search some more, and it appears that three letter search strings are the problem. I get identical results when I type:

ihc + decoder
dcc + decoder
aaa + decoder
yyy + decoder

But I get correct AND searches when I do something like:

atlas + decoder

It looks like the search engine doesn't recognize three letter search strings at all. So, a search for IHC reveals "sorry no matches". In the big scheme of things this is no biggie, but I don't know if this is a fixable or representative of a bigger bug.
 
Jac's Lines said:
Ok, I played around with the search some more, and it appears that three letter search strings are the problem. I get identical results when I type:

ihc + decoder
dcc + decoder
aaa + decoder
yyy + decoder

But I get correct AND searches when I do something like:

atlas + decoder

It looks like the search engine doesn't recognize three letter search strings at all. So, a search for IHC reveals "sorry no matches". In the big scheme of things this is no biggie, but I don't know if this is a fixable or representative of a bigger bug.
Click to expand...

that is because 99 and 44/100 % of all search engines automatically disregard words under 4 characters long...

So if you search for UP or PRR or NYC the search engine will not work accurately... but if you search for katy - it will work perfectly, 90% of the time

3 letter acronyms are the bane of search engines... :) Why?? because "A" "AN" and "THE" appear millions maybe billions of times on the net.. to search through all those 3, 2 & 1 letter words would slow down the net all over the world.......

just something "we all" have to live with....
 
When i search, i very seldom use Boolean: +, -, (), or, and, not I most always use quotes "" to narrow searches.... The way to check to see if a search engine works is to enter "DCC" and see the results...
Yes, I did it for you in our search engine.... Yes I got the "Sorry no results were found......"

So anything under 4 letters won't work here.....

Try Digital + command + Steam

and see what you get :) :)
 
YmeBP said:
I guess this also works for the person typing the post. I tend to use the acronyms or abbreviation, after reading this i think i'm going to type them out at least once in the post so others can search and find them.
Click to expand...

Good idea... :) Of course you could use a "Business type" format

The theory of Direct Command Control (DCC) is that...................

Then throughout the thread anyone else and you could use DCC and the search engine would still pick out the thread in a search :)

Only thing it looks bad on is Ohm... You would have to place "Ohms" somewhere in the thread, or "Resistance" ...
And then someone would have to search for anything other than "Ohm"
 
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