Full-text search¶
The full-text search searches all relevant fields of the archival records at once: titles, reference codes, text fields, linked actors, places and keywords — and also the text recognised by OCR from PDFs and images.
What is searched¶
For each archival object, the following are combined for the search:
- Titles of the object and of all superordinate units (fonds → series → file → document)
- Reference codes (current and former) as well as the internal ID
- Designations of the level of description, the object type and the location
- Datings
- Linked keywords in all available language variants
- Linked places
- Linked actors (only those publicly visible)
- Text fields that are visible in the external form
- OCR text from media (PDFs, images)
Extended view for internal editors
For logged-in users from the user_intern role upwards, the following are searched in addition:
- private actors
- all text fields (including those visible internally only)
- objects marked as private
Search behaviour¶
Word beginnings are recognised automatically¶
Wildcards (*) are not necessary — the search automatically finds all words that begin with the search term entered.
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
alkohol |
«Alkohol», «Alkoholverbot», «alkoholisch» |
müller |
«Müller», «Müller-Weber», «Müllers» |
But not in the middle of a word
kohol does not find «Alkohol». The search only takes effect at the beginning of a word.
Several words are combined with AND¶
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
alkohol verbot |
Records in which both terms occur — they may be any distance apart |
OR instead of AND¶
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
alcohol OR ban |
Records containing either of the two |
ODER works the same way. AND and UND are the default and can be left out.
The operators themselves are not searched for.
Excluding a term¶
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
alcohol -ban |
Records with alcohol but without ban |
The minus sits directly against the word, with no space. A search consisting only of exclusions returns nothing.
Quotation marks for exact phrases¶
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
"rudolf leder" |
Only records in which this sequence of words occurs exactly like this |
#rudolf leder# |
Identical — # is an alternative notation for " |
With a phrase, word beginnings are not searched automatically — the phrase has to occur exactly.
Very short words are ignored in phrases too
Words of fewer than 3 characters and some English stop words (the, for, and) drop out of the comparison even within quotation marks. A phrase such as "AG Reinach" therefore effectively matches only «Reinach».
Phrases in the document text
If the archive keeps the full text condensed (setting
optimize_fulltext), the index holds only the first occurrence of each word
— phrases are then only findable to a limited extent in the text of PDFs.
Search for single words is unaffected. Whether this applies is known to the
administration; see search fields.
Terms with a hyphen¶
Terms with a hyphen (e.g. Arp-Hagenbach) are automatically treated like a phrase: the search looks for both parts directly next to each other.
What does not work¶
- Terms of fewer than 3 characters are ignored (
ag,zb). - A small stopword list of the database is skipped. It is English and holds, among others,
the,of,for— and, notably here,und,de,enandla.der,dieanddasare not on it and are searchable. A name such as de Rougemont is therefore only found through Rougemont. - Searching in the middle of a word is not possible (see above).
Boolean full-text search¶
Besides the ordinary search box, the advanced search offers the field «Boolean Full-Text Search». It searches the same content but understands connectors — and in one respect it behaves the opposite way to the ordinary field.
Bare words are OR here, not AND
In the ordinary search box every word entered has to occur. In the boolean
field one is enough: Maur Gemeinde finds records with «Maur» or
«Gemeinde». To require both, write Maur AND Gemeinde.
The operators¶
| Input | Meaning |
|---|---|
Maur Gemeinde |
either one is enough |
Maur AND Gemeinde |
both have to occur |
Maur OR Gemeinde |
explicitly either (the default) |
Maur NOT Gemeinde |
«Maur», but without «Gemeinde» |
+Maur -Gemeinde |
the same in short form |
"Feuerwehr Maur" |
that exact sequence of words |
Gemeinde* |
all words beginning with «Gemeinde» |
AND, OR and NOT are written in capitals. They act on both sides: Maur AND
Gemeinde requires «Maur» too, not only «Gemeinde». An explicit sign wins over a
preceding AND — Maur AND -Gemeinde stays an exclusion.
Wildcards¶
The asterisk works only at the end of a word: Gemeinde* finds
«Gemeindearchiv». Putting it in front does not help — in *archiv the asterisk
is removed and what remains is the ordinary search for «archiv», which finds
words beginning that way, not words ending that way. Inside a word it has no
effect.
Short words¶
Words of fewer than three characters are in no database search index. Unlike in
the ordinary field they do not drop out of the search here: Anton looks for
them as a character sequence in the text instead. So FC Maur finds what it
should — «FC» is then also found inside a word, because this kind of search knows
no word boundaries.
What the field cannot do¶
- Brackets for grouping are removed.
(a OR b) AND ccannot be expressed. - A single quotation mark is discarded rather than reported as an error:
"Feuerwehrbecomes an ordinary search for «Feuerwehr».
Distinction from the weighted search¶
The full-text search searches archival objects. The weighted search is a different function and concerns the list views of actors, places and keywords — there, hits are sorted by relevance.