Article link: Advanced usage guidelines for searching the file database

With the updates made to the advanced search functionality of the file database on the 19th of June 2008 comes the ability to use two special characters within your keywords for the file name field to help refine your search results more. This short article explains, with examples, the function of these two characters and how they might benefit you while using the search feature of the site.

How the file name keywords work
The search algorithm works by seperating every word into seperate keywords and doing a "LIKE" comparison on each individual word. For example if you type in "Midas Magic" (without quotes) then the search algorithm considers "Midas" and "Magic" two seperate words and will search for files with both "Midas" and "Magic" in their name. It's important to note that the spaces are not counted in the keyword so if you search for "idas agic" then the search results will likely be the same.

Keywords are not case-sensitive so you do not need to worry about capitals.

If you do not use any special characters then the search algorithm will search for all the keywords in a filename in a string of "AND"'s. So "Midas Magic Spells" will search for all file names with words that contain "Midas" AND "Magic" AND "Spells" in them. If a file contains "Midas" AND "Magic" but not "Spells" then it will not be shown.

Special characters
There are currently two special characters that you can place infront of keywords to refine your search results:

The "-" character acts as a "NOT LIKE" keyword.
The "~" character acts as a "OR" keyword.

To use these characters you should place the character infront of the keyword in question. For example "Midas Magic -Spells" and "Armour ~Weapons".

NOT LIKE examples
By placing the "-" character infront of keywords it acts as a "NOT LIKE" word, i.e. the search will discard any results that contain that word in them.

If I currently search the database for files with "Midas Magic" in the file name then I receive 6 results. 3 of these results are compatibility files for other modifications that contain "for" in the file name and I am not interested in these. So to discard these results I am not interested I can enter "Midas Magic -for" into the file name search field. Now only 3 results show and none of them contain the word "for" in them.

If I'm interested in mods for mages but do not want any mage robes then I can search for "mage -robe" to remove any files with "robe" in the name.


OR examples
By placing the "~" character infront of keywords it acts as an "OR" word, i.e. the search will look for files with one word OR another, rather than AND.

If I search the file database for files with "weapon" in the name I receive 192 results. If I search the database for files with "armour" in the name I receive 111 results. If I search the database for "weapon ~armour" then I receive both sets of results in one. The result discrepancy comes from the fact some of the files have both armour and weapon in their file name.

If I am interested in some ninja gear but want to broaden my search I might like to expand into areas that are similar. If I search for "ninja" I'll only get 16 results but if I search for "ninja ~stealth ~samurai ~assassin" then I'll get close to 100 results.

It seems now that you can't search by partial word. I typed in "vvarden" this morning and there were no matches, where as I did the same thing last night, and found the SoVvM mod I was looking for. It's little things like that that make the difference to me. Is there a way you can re-implement that?

Thank you, DarkOne. This will help me and many others enormously.

Searching databases is always a tricky job. This will help me get exactly what I'm looking for.

Storm Raven

If you were using the quick search (on the right) then this might have been fixed. Try again!

This is a huge improvement. Thank you!