Search Help
Choose a topic below for more information:
Quick Tips and Examples
Searching is easy, just type in a few words or phrases. Try to use discriminating terms that are likely to be found only in the documents you seek. The more words you give, the better results you'll get. Here are some examples:
Search by typing words and phrases.
FAST Data Search will find documents containing as many of these words and phrases as possible, ranked so that the documents most relevant to your query are presented first.
Identify phrases with quotation marks
A phrase is entered using double quotation marks, and only matches those words which appear adjacent to each other.
Search is case insensitive, so upper case is not necessary.
Search Syntax Summary
| Operator | Action | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Note: Boolean-style searches are available. | ||
| "term1 term2 ..." | Specifies that words should be adjacent | "thermal imaging" |
| +term | Requires a term | +"thermal imaging" IMAQ |
| -term | Excludes documents containing a term | "thermal imaging" IMAQ -serial |
Refining a Search
It's easy to refine a query to get precisely the results you want. Here are some effective techniques to try:
Identify a phrase.
Before: computer monitor signals
After: "computer monitor" signals
The before query is ambiguous. Is it looking for a computer solution for signal monitoring or for information on analog video? Identifying "computer monitor" as a phrase eliminates the ambiguity. This is the most powerful query refinement technique.
Add a discriminating word or a phrase.
Before: "computer monitor" signals
After: "computer monitor" signals video
As above, the before query is ambiguous. Adding video makes the query less ambiguous and the relevance ranking will be better.
Use a reject operator (-).
Before: education
After: education "academic solutions" -customer
Alone, education is ambiguous. Is it looking for customer education information or product uses in academics? You can use the reject operator (the "minus" sign) to eliminate the customer education interpretation. The after version above does this.
Use a field specifier.
Before: serial communication
After: title:"serial communication"
If you are looking for a particular page where you know the title, use the title: field specifier to search for the word or phrase in the title of the page. See Special Searches for more information on field specifiers.
TOPRequiring or Excluding Terms
FAST Data Search uses a simple query syntax which gives you the pinpoint search power of Boolean logic, without having to remember complex queries. The table below shows the operators that correspond to Boolean operators:
| FAST operator | Boolean equivalent |
|---|---|
| Default operator: you need not use any special symbols | AND |
| ( ) | OR |
| - | NOT |
| phrase operator: enclose the phrase with double quotation marks | ADJ |
Boolean queries use the logical operators AND, OR, NOT and ADJ (adjacent). Suppose you wanted to find a high precision temperature logger that does not use PCI. This query can be specified in Boolean logic as:
(high ADJ precision) AND (temperature ADJ logger) AND NOT (pci OR compactpci)Using FAST Data Search operators, the complex query above may be typed into the search box as:
"high precision" "temperature logger" -(pci compactpci)This query specifies that:
- All returned documents must contain the phrases "temperature logger" and "high precision".
- None of the documents returned will contain either pci or compactpci.