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Search syntax for quotes or boolean on DLP

Discussion in 'Site Related Support' started by yak, Feb 19, 2011.

  1. yak

    yak Moderator DLP Supporter Retired Staff

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Australia
    I want to search for a phrase in WbA ["looking glass"], but I can't find a way to search for phrases on DLP any more. Does anyone know how to do this?

    Every search variation I've tried will show results which contain either looking or glass, but not both together. I'd try a Google search of DLP, but the WbA forum is restricted to members only, so Google doesn't index it. I'd be happy if I could just get a boolean search to look for the words "looking" and "glass", not as a phrase, but at least with both words in the same post.

    I've been googling for vBulletin's boolean search syntax online, but I can't get it to work here. Perhaps my usergroup doesn't have permission to do boolean searches. I'm stumped.

    This is what I've tried:

    I've used the terms "buckbeak" and "scrimgeour" because they're both relatively common, won't appear in the same post very frequently, and should never appear directly adjacent to each other. That makes them ideal to test whether or not I can get a boolean AND operation to work.

    Using the Advanced Search forum, I've tried:

    buckbeak scrimgeour
    +buckbeak +scrimgeour
    buckbeak AND scrimgeour
    (buckbeak scrimgeour)
    "buckbeak scrimgeour"
    buckbeak#scrimgeour

    and every time I received the exact same search results, as though I'd searched for buckbeak AND OR scrimgeour

    Here's the URL I've been using to search in WbA without the form.

    http://forums.darklordpotter.net/search.php?do=process&forumchoice[]=11&searchtype=1&query=buckbeak+scrimgeour

    &forumchoice[]=11 points the search to WbA
    &query=buckbeak is for the search term buckbeak
    &searchtype=1 which should perform a boolean search, but doesn't seem to work.

    &query=buckbeak gets me 22 threads
    &query=scrimgeour 57 threads
    &query=buckbeak+scrimgeour 76 threads
    &query=buckbeak+AND+scrimgeour 76 threads
    &query=buckbeak#scrimgeour 22 threads [same as searching for query=buckbeak]

    ...so there should be 3 threads with posts which contain both scrimgeour and buckbeak in the WbA subforum. Note that all of these search results exclude any content from WbA child boards.

    I'm sure that I used to be able to perform boolean searches on DLP, but the method, syntax, or permissions appear to have changed. If anyone knows the trick, I'd love to know it. I'll kick myself if it's something simple.
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2011
  2. Oz

    Oz For Zombie. Moderator DLP Supporter

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  3. yak

    yak Moderator DLP Supporter Retired Staff

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    No dice. It's the same as: looking glass
     
  4. Oz

    Oz For Zombie. Moderator DLP Supporter

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    Strange. o_O

    looking.glass returns 17 results for me, while looking glass returns over 800. In fact, "lookign glass" returns 17 for me as well. o.o
     
  5. yak

    yak Moderator DLP Supporter Retired Staff

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    Weird. I get the 800+ search results no matter how I try it. I copy pasted the search terms straight from your post. I thought it might be some browser fuckery, but Chrome behaved the same way as Opera.
     
  6. Militis

    Militis Supreme Mugwump

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    I hope you mean "looking glass". :p

    Have you tried the symbol boolean operators instead of the text? (&& for AND, || for OR)

    I get 367 results searching for "looking && glass" in WBA (and child forums). (With or without quotes doesn't seem to make a difference.)
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2011
  7. yak

    yak Moderator DLP Supporter Retired Staff

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    Actually, no. Mispelling "lookign glass" as Oz did still nets me the same results as the correct spelling.

    I'd tried &, but not && or ||. Sadly they have no effect. It's the same as just searching for "looking glass"
     
  8. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Because there are no results for "looking". All the 833 are for glass, try it.

    And AFAIK, we never had a Boolean search, that's why we never could search for pairings ("Harry/Fleur") and created the tags.


    Edit:
    And yeah, I know this is curious, considering the last six posts contained "looking" and it's plain unbelievable that no one ever used "looking" in a post before either. The best I can come up with is that it's the way the search engine is constructed -- using some kind of index to search, instead of actually searching the posts themselves; and the index omitting certain words like "looking" because they are actually too common.
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2011
  9. yak

    yak Moderator DLP Supporter Retired Staff

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    That is bizarre.

    Maybe I'm misremembering, but I could have sworn we used to be able to do AND searches. Something like:

    +buckbeak +scrimgeour

    to pull up posts which contained both terms.
     
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