Boolean searches

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Search engine updates

The MARGOT search engine (updated March 2010) includes the following features

  1. Search results are now highlighted in the display screen.
  2. Texts in the corpus may be searched all at once (menu option: All Texts), or selectively, by choosing from the list of texts.
  3. Search strings which include spaces and (allowed) punctuation must be delimited by double quotation marks (").
    1. allowed punctuation includes only the period (.), the colon (:), and the exclamation mark (!)
    2. not allowed are: the comma (,) the semi-colon (;), the apostrophe ('), or quotation marks ("), since these characters are used by the search engine itself.
      • note that quotation marks, both double and single, and the apostrophe, are coded within the text (&odq;=open double quote, &osq;=open single quote, &cdq;=close double quote, &csq;=close single quote, '=apostrophe), and these codes may used within the search string (e.g. the search strings "&odq;Sire" and "l'oysel" will match "Sire and l'oysel).
  4. complex searches may be created using Boolean operators and parenthetically grouped words and phrases. The operators are:
    • the AND operator, represented by the plus sign: +
    • the AND/OR operator, represented by the straight slash bar: |
    • the NOT operator, represented by the minus sign : -
    • the use of quotation marks in order to look for a phrase instead of a word: " "
    • the use of brackets in order to create a hierarchy within a given search string : e.g. ( " string1 " + string2) | string3
      • by default, spaces are irrelevant unless they are enclosed within quotation marks. To find the exact match of a given word use the combination space-word-space, placed between quotation marks. In the preceding example, if string1=dit and string3=dit, the results of " string1 " will always be " dit ", while the results of string3 may include any string containing these letters, such as dit, attendit, mesdit, dites, etc.

Further Examples of Boolean Searches

The following show the use of Boolean operators in Word or Phrase searches.

  • oysel + chant : will retrieve every passage from the selected corpus and display it within the context one chooses (e.g., one line, five lines, column, page) that includes both the words oysel (or any word that contains that string of letters, e.g., damoyseles or oyselet) and chant (or any word that contains that string of letters, e.g., chanta, chantent); in this case 4 examples are found: De un oysel ke chanta (rubric R_cM811), l'oysel chanteit (R_cM937), Le chant de l'oysel (R_cM945), l'oysel par le chant, (R_cM947)
  • oysel+" chant " : will retrieve every passage from the selected corpus (displayed within the chosen context) that includes one word that contains or is the same as oysel and one word that is the same as chant (preceded and followed by a space); in this case only Le chant de l'oysel matches, but not l'oysel par le chant, (because chant is followed by a comma and not a space)
  • oysel - chant : will retrieve every passage from the selected corpus (displayed within the chosen context) that includes one word that contains or is the same as oysel but that excludes any word that contains or is the same as chant; in this instance the four matches found above in our first example, of oysel+chant, are excluded from the results
  • " oysel"|chant : will retrieve every passage from the selected corpus that includes one word that begins with, or is the same as, oysel, and/or one word that contains or is the same as chant; in this instance there are numerous matches of either oysel or chant (including enchantement, prechant, aprochant, etc.),or both oysel and chant
  • " culur de "- lis : will retrieve every passage from the selected corpus and within the context one chooses that includes the exact phrase culur de and that excludes any word that contains or is the same as lis
  • ("sage "+ " curt") - (pru|noble) : will retrieve every passage from the selected corpus and within the chosen context (line, column, page) and display (line, five lines, column, page) that includes the word sage and one word that is the same as or begins with curt and that excludes any word that contains or is the same as pru and/or any word that contains or is the same as noble. Results include: CtE_bt8 Sage e curteise e bien nurrie; E_w78 En Deu sage, en siecle curtais, E_w1888 Sages, curtais et dreiturers, VE_w5726 Lanfranc, li sage e li curteis.
  • ("sage" + "curt") + (noble|pru) gives one result: Bkt2182 Sages, pruz et curteis et sanz nul mal apel.
  • ("sage" + "curt" + "pruz" ) | noble matches all the first three terms found in the chosen context, and/or the fourth term (noble), so it matches Bkt2182, as well as all the lines containing noble.