Texas Worker allows Boolean, “All words”, and “Any word” search queries together with Stemming and Synonym query expansion. You can also use Wildcards and other options on a word-by-word basis using special characters. Filtering by fields and Facet navigation and searching are also available.
The search results display the Title of each document and optionally a field, such as the date of publication, together with a snippet of text with highlighted query terms.
A typical embedded search page is shown below.
banana pear “apple pie”
“apple pie” -salad +”ice cream”
and
and or
that indicate the relationship between them. Examples:
If you use more than one connector, you should use parentheses (brackets) to indicate precisely what you want to search for. For example,apple and pear
Both words must be presentapple or pear
Either word can be presentapple w/5 pear
Apple
must occur within 5 words ofpear
apple pre/5 pear
Apple
must occur within 5 words beforepear
apple not w/5 pear
Apple
must not occur within 5 words ofpear
apple and
not pear Onlyapple
must be presenttitle contains smith
The fieldtitle
must containsmith
apple and pear or orange juice
could mean (apple
and pear) or orange, or it could mean apple and (pear or orange)
.
? Matches any single character. Example:appl?
matchesapply
orapple.
*
Matches any number of characters. Example:appl*
matchesapplication
=
Matches any single digit. Example:200=
matches2000
or2006.
~
Stemming. Example:apply~
matchesapply
,applies
,applied
.%
Fuzzy search. Example:ba%nana
matchesbanana
,bananna
.#
Phonic search. Example:#smith
matchessmith
,smythe
.&
Synonym search. Example:court&
matchestribunal
.~~
Numeric range. Example:12~~24
matches18
.
“res judicata”
. You can use a phrase anywhere in a search query. Example: apple w/5 “fruit salad”
The * wildcard character near the beginning of a word will slow searches considerably.appl*
would match apple, application, etc.*cipl*
would match principle, participle, etc.appl?
would match apply and apple but not apples.ap*ed
would match applied, approved, etc.200=
would match 2002, 2006, etc.
court
would also find tribunal
. You can enable synonym searching for all words in a request or you can enable synonym searching selectively by adding the & character after certain words in a request. Example: fast& w/5 search
#Smith
will also find Smithe
and Smythe
. Note that a search for #Philipp will find Phillipe or Philip, but it will not find Filip because it begins with a different letter. If you have selected Stemming it will also find Phillips, Philips, etc.
witness
would also find witnesses
, witnessing
, and witnessed
.
There are two ways to add stemming to your searches:
apply~ will also find applies, applied, applying.
title and dateoforder
, you could search for (Title contains queen) or (dateoforder contains 2016/06/03).
Alternatively, you can filter results using the Date and Title Contains field filters, as in the example Legal Search.
Field searches can be combined using and
, or
, and not
EXAMPLE: corruption and (title contains (queen or crown)).
The parentheses are necessary to ensure Texas Worker interprets the search request correctly.
apple pie and poached pear
would retrieve any document that contained both phrases, “apple pie”, “poached pear”.
(apple or banana) and (pear w/5 grape)
would retrieve any document that (1) contained either apple
OR banana
, AND (2) contained pear
within 5 words of grape
.
apple pie or poached pear
would retrieve any document that contained apple pie
, poached pear
, or both.
apple w/5 pear
would retrieve any document that contained apple
within 5 words of pear
. The following are examples of search requests using W/N:
In general, at least one of the two expressions connected by W/N must be a single word or phrase or a group of words and phrases connected by OR. Example:(apple or pear) w/5 banana
(apple w/5 banana) w/10 pear
(apple and banana) w/10 pear
CAUTION: Some types of complex expressions using the W/N connector will produce ambiguous results and should not be used. The following are examples of ambiguous search requests:(apple and banana) w/10 (pear or grape)
(apple and banana) w/10 orange tree
Texas Worker uses two built-in words to mark the beginning and end of a file:(apple and banana) w/10 (pear and grape)
(apple w/10 banana) w/10 (pear and grape)
xfirstword
and xlastword
. The terms are useful if you want to limit a search to the beginning or end of a file. For example, supreme court w/30 xfirstword
would search for supreme court within 30 words of the start of a document.
george pre/3 michael
, would find george michael, george william michael, george w michael
apple sauce and not pear
NOT standing alone can be the start of a search request. For example, not pear
would retrieve all documents that did not contain pear
.
If NOT is not the first connector in a request, you need to use either AND or OR with NOT:
The NOT W/ (“not within”) operator allows you to search for a word or phrase not in association with another word or phrase. Example:apple or not pear
not (apple w/5 pear)
apple not w/20 pear
Unlike the W/ operator, NOT W/ is not symmetrical. That is, apple not w/20 pear
is not the same as pear not w/20 apple
. In the apple not w/20 pear
request, Texas Worker searches for apple
and excludes cases where apple
is too close to pear
. In the pear not w/20 apple
request, Texas Worker searches for pear
and excludes cases where pear
is too close to apple
.
Generally, it is easier to use the standard wildcards * or ? especially if you are not sure of the spelling or to find misspellings e.g.ba%nana
Word must begin with ba and have at most one difference between it and banana.b%%anana
Word must begin with b and have at most two differences between it and banana.
Car*ib*n
will find Caribbean, Carribean, Carribbean, Caribian, or Caribbian.
apple w/5 2002~~2007
This query would find any document containing apple
within 5 words of a number (e.g. year between 2002
and 2007
.
Numeric range searches only work with positive integers and include the upper and lower bounds (so 2002 and 2007 would be retrieved in the above example); decimal points and commas are treated as spaces and minus signs are ignored. For example, -123,456.78 would be interpreted as: 123 456 78 (three numbers).