User Guide

Composing search expressions 599
The following table describes the proximity operators:
The following example uses a proximity operator:
<cfsearch name = "quick_search"
collection="bbb"
type = "explicit"
criteria="red<near>socks">
For an example using the IN proximity operator to search XML documents , see “Zone searches”
on page 602.
Operator Description Example
NEAR Selects documents containing specified search
terms. The closer the search terms are to one
another within a document, the higher the
document’s score. The document with the
smallest possible region containing all search
terms always receives the highest score.
Documents whose search terms are not within
1000 words of each other are not selected.
war <NEAR> peace retrieves
documents that contain
stemmed variations of these
words within close proximity to
each other (as defined by
Verity). To control search
proximity, use NEAR/N.
NEAR/N Selects documents containing two or more
search terms within N number of words of each
other, where N is an integer between 1 and 1024.
NEAR/1 searches for two words that are next to
each other. The closer the search terms are
within a document, the higher the document's
score.
You can specify multiple search terms using
multiple instances of NEAR/N as long as the
value of N is the same.
commute <NEAR/10> bicycle
<NEAR/10> train <NEAR/10>
retrieves documents that
contain stemmed variations of
these words within 10 words of
each other.
PARAGRAPH Selects documents that include all of the words
you specify within the same paragraph. To
search for three or more words or phrases in a
paragraph, you must use the PARAGRAPH
operator between each word or phrase.
<PARAGRAPH> (mission, goal,
statement) retrieves documents
that contain these terms within
a paragraph.
PHRASE Selects documents that include a phrase you
specify. A phrase is a grouping of two or more
words that occur in a specific order.
<PHRASE> (mission, oak)
returns documents that contain
the phrase mission oak.
SENTENCE Selects documents that include all of the words
you specify within the same sentence.
<SENTENCE> (jazz, musician)
returns documents that contain
these words in the same
sentence.
IN Selects documents that contain specified values
in one or more document zones. A document
zone represents a region of a document, such as
the document’s summary, date, or body text. To
search for a term only within the one or more
zones that have certain conditions, you qualify
the IN operator with the WHEN operator.
Chang <IN> author searches
document zones named author
for the word Chang.