Search functions
The search feature uses software called Lunr. Lunr supports some special search functions that you can use to refine your search. We explain some of these here.
Stemming function
By default, Lunr includes variations on stem words in its results.
shoot will yield not only instances of the stem word 'shoot' but also variations such as 'shoots', 'shooter' and 'shooting'.
This works in combination with most other search functions.
Exact match function
Many search tools support exact match searches, usually through the use of double quotation marks ("ork").
However, at the time of writing, Lunr does not support exact match search.
Wildcard function
You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard, anywhere in your search term.
sho* will yield instances of words that begin with 'sho', such as 'shoot' and 'should'.
*oot will yield instances of words that end with 'oot', such as 'shoot' and 'boot'.
| According to the Lunr documentation leading wildcards "…should be used sparingly. They can have a negative impact on the performance of a search, especially in large indexes." |
s*t will yield instances of words that begin with 's' and end with 't', such as 'shoot' and 'silent'.
Titles-only function
By default, Lunr will search both the content of topics and the titles of topics.
If you want to find matches only in titles, you can use the title: prefix.
title:shoot will yield only instances of 'shoot' that appear in topic titles — it will not yield instances that appear elsewhere in the content.
You can combine titles-only search with other search functions and multiple terms.
title:sho* fire will yield instances where a word in a topic title begins with 'sho', or where the word 'fire' appears anywhere in the content.
Term presence function
You can of course enter multiple terms into the search box at one time.
By default, Lunr will combine your terms together with the logical operator OR — and thus you’ll get results that match any or all of the terms you entered.
ork gun will yield instances where either 'ork' or 'gun' exist, or both exist.
(Effectively 'ork OR gun'.)
However, you can change the behaviour for each term that you enter. You can define which terms you want to be present or absent to match results:
-
To indicate that a term must be present, prefix the term with a plus (
+) character. -
To indicate that a term must be absent, prefix the term with a minus (
-) character.
+ork gun -trukk will yield instances that must contain 'ork', may contain 'gun' and must not contain 'trukk'.
(Effectively 'ork AND/OR gun NOT trukk'.)
AND+ork +gun will simulate a logical operator AND search — that is, it will yield only results that contain both 'ork' and 'gun'.
(Effectively 'ork AND gun'.)
Fuzzy-match function
Fuzzy matching can be helpful where you’re not sure how to spell a word, or you want to expand your search to include more 'close' matches in your search results.
To use this, append a tilde (~) and then a positive integer to a term.
The positive integer defines the 'edit distance'.
An edit distance of 1 will match words that differ from your search term by only one character.
That is, words that would match your search term if you were to add, remove or change a single character, or to transpose a single pair of characters.
ork~1 will yield instances of words that are within one edit of 'ork' — such as 'Mork' or 'ark'.
This search would not return matches for 'stork' as that would require two edits, to add an 's' and a 't'.
Boost function
When you search for multiple terms, it may be that some terms are more important to you than others — that is, results where these terms have a more significant presence are likely to be more relevant to you.
For such cases, you can 'boost' the relevance of particular terms. This makes Lunr treat those terms with more significance — any topic that matches a boosted term will get a higher relevance score, and appear higher up in the search results.
To apply a boost to a term, append a caret (^) and then a positive integer.
shoot broken^10 will score the term 'broken' 10 times higher than the term 'shoot'.
So, Lunr will prioritise results that include the word 'broken' ahead of those that contain the word 'shoot'.
The boost value can be any positive integer, and you can give different boosts to different terms if you like:
shoot broken^10 retreat^5 orders