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search tips

• Phrase searching:
  Retrieves files containing the words you enter in exactly that order.



• Searching for all words:
  Retrieves files containing the words you enter in any order (implied Boolean AND).



• If you are only entering one word to search for, it does not matter which of the two choices above you have selected. However, entering only one word, and checking phrase searching AND match partial words may result in no "hits".



• The index only contains alphanumeric characters (letters and numbers), so queries containing other symbols (hyphens, etc.) may not yield the desired results.



• Case sensitive searching:
  When selected, uppercase and lowercase letters are not considered equivalent.

  Example:

  Entering Unix would not match UNIX.



• Partial word matching:
  When selected, the search string you enter will retrieve files containing words of which it is a part.

  Example:

  Entering line would match line, and also offline, linear, and so on.



• What's being searched?
  All HTML files in the directory shown in the URL following "Search for files in and under"; and in its subdirectories, if any.



• What's not being searched?
  
  • Files that are linked to from, but not part of, The IMAP Connection; for example, the meeting descriptions on other WWW servers that are linked to from the Meetings and conferences page.


• "Dead" links from list of retrievals?
  Not finding files you know are there and should match your search?
  The index underlying the search function is rebuilt automatically; the date and time of the last index generation is shown in the Search Results page (after you conducted a search), at the bottom of the Results of your search section. The search may occasionally show files that have been deleted since the index was last rebuilt, resulting in "dead" links; or it may fail to retrieve files that have been added or modified (their date is shown in the Results of your search section) since the index was last rebuilt.

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© 1996-2008 University of Washington
Last modified: Wed Jan 9 2008