Advanced search

You can go beyond simple one-word searches by using the operators and modifiers that Paglo provides to add focus, clarity, and power to your searches. Add efficiency by searching directly in a specific field. Add focus by modifying terms and phrases with wildcards. Make a search more specific by combining terms together with Boolean operators. And you can control the boolean logic of a search by grouping search clauses.

Using search terms

The simplest search consists of a single term or phrase:

Single terms — A single word such as eth0 or 2008.
Phrases — A group of words between double quotes, such as "system name" or "private keys".

Searching with the wildcard

Paglo supports two types of wildcard searches to use with single terms only:

Single character wildcard search — Add the question ? mark in the middle or at the end of a single word search term to find terms that match except for one character. For example, the following search finds text, test, tent, and so on:

Multiple character wildcard search — Add the star * symbol in the middle or at the end of a single word search term to search for terms that match except for zero or more characters. For example, the following search finds key, keys, keyboard, and so on:

Note: The ? and * wildcards cannot be used as the first character of a search term such as *in, or in a search phrase such as "private key*".

Searching with fields

You can add efficiency by searching directly in a specific category or field of data. Paglo sorts your data into fields that you can include in a search. If you do not indicate a field, then Paglo searches the Contents field by default. To indicate a field, simply type the field name followed with a colon, and follow that with the term you want to find. For example, you can search for everything about Node # 1511 by using the ID field, like this:

Note: The field indicates only the first term that directly follows the colon. For example, if you enter this: id:15 11, Paglo looks in the ID field for 15, and in the default Contents field for 11. This produces very different results, of course.

Paglo supports the following fields:

id — The tree node id. For example, the following id-fielded search finds everything about Node # 24:
path — The tree path. For example, the following path-fielded search finds everything about the users on your network (by the way, Paglo uses this same search to populate the Directory bar of the Search Index Profile on your home page):
parent_id — The parent, or node that other nodes belong to. Currently device is the only parent node that exists. If you search using the parent_id field, Paglo finds everything that belongs to that parent. For example, the following parent_id-fielded search finds everything about the things that belong to (its child nodes or sub-nodes) Node # 24:
parent_path — The path of the parent. For example, the following parent_path-fielded search finds everything about the child nodes under the device node:
contents — This is the default field. For example, if you simply type the term Dell into your search field, Paglo uses the default contents field and finds any and all instances of software, interfaces, documents, and so on, that contain the name mysql:

Searching with Boolean operators

You can make a search more specific by combining terms together using Boolean operators. Paglo supports the following operators:

Note: For the order in which Paglo evaluates operators, see Precedence.

AND

The AND operator matches documents that contain multiple terms or phrases anywhere within a single node (the equivalent to an intersection using sets). It is the PQL default, so if you use multiple terms without indicating a Boolean operator, Paglo relies on the AND operator default. You can also use two ampersand && symbols in lieu of the word AND. For example, the following search options return the same results:

OR

The OR operator finds a match if one or more of your search terms matches (the equivalent to a union using sets). You can also use two pipe || symbols in lieu of the word OR. For example, the following search options return the same results:

NOT

The NOT operator excludes nodes that contain the term that immediately follows the NOT operator (the equivalent to a difference using sets). You can also use the exclamation ! point in lieu of NOT. For example, to find network adapter but filter out ethernet adapter, use either option:

Note: You must use the NOT operator with at least two terms or phrases. For example, running NOT "ethernet adapter" by itself is meaningless and does not generate any results.

+ (Require)

The plus + sign, also called the Require operator, finds a match only if the term that immediately follows it exists somewhere within a single node. For example, to find nodes that must contain keys, and may or may not contain private, use:

- (Prohibit)

The minus - symbol, also called the Prohibit operator, excludes nodes that contain the search term that immediately follows the - operator. For example, to find network adapter but not ethernet adapter, use:

Searching by grouping

You can control the boolean logic of a search by using parentheses to group search clauses in both fielded and unfielded searches:

Unfielded grouping

You can use parentheses to group specific clauses within an unfielded search. For example, to search for adapter, plus either network or ethernet, use parentheses to indicate which terms are associated with the OR operator, and which with the AND operator:

Using parentheses to group the clause in this example ensures that unauthorized matches are found, and that either services or processes matches may be found.

Fielded grouping

You can use parentheses to group multiple clauses to a specific field, in a fielded search. For example, to find documents that contain both the single term 2007 and the phrase Microsoft Office, you can use:

Modifying search terms

You can add focus to your search by modifying terms and phrases with wildcards and other characters to affect the proximity, range, and relevance of a search term:

Proximity searches

You can search for words that are a certain distance apart by adding the tilde ~ symbol to the end of a phrase. For example, if you want to search for unauthorized and users wherever they occur within 5 words of each other, use:

Note: You cannot use the ~ wildcard in the middle or at the beginning of a search term. Also, the ~ wildcard accomplishes different results if you use it with a single term.

Fuzzy searches

You can search for terms that 'sound like' other terms by adding a tilde ~ symbol to the end of a single search term. For example, the following search finds win and wia, as well as 0in and 5in:

You can specify the degree of similarity by adding a value between 0 and 1, which represents a threshold at which a term is matched or dropped. For example, the following search returns terms with a similarity higher than the 0.6 threshold, and ignores terms that fall below the threshold:

If you run a fuzzy search without indicating a threshold, Paglo uses a default of 0.5.

Note: You cannot use the ~ wildcard in the middle or at the beginning of a search term. Also, the ~ wildcard accomplishes different results if you use it in a phrase.

Promoting relevance

You can promote the relevance of a specific search term by adding a caret ^ symbol followed by a number to the end of the term you want to find. The higher the number, the more relevant that term. For example, to increase the relevance of one term when searching for protected storage, use:

You can use relevance promotion with both single terms and phrases. In the following example, one phrase is considered to be more relevant than the other:

Note: By default, relevance promotion is 1. You can promote the relevance by a fraction less than one, but it must be a positive number.

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