Search syntax
| Search type | Example | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Spaces between words or AND (must be upper case) | urban park | A space is treated as an AND. These examples both search for urban AND park – a record must contain both words to be a match. |
| urban AND park | ||
| OR search – OR must be upper case | urban OR park | A record has to contain only one of these words to be a match. |
| Use double quotes to define a phrase search | "urban park" | A record must contain the exact phrase to be a match. |
| Negative searches | urban -park | A record must contain urban and must not contain park to be a match. |
| Wild card search |
Wild cards can be placed anywhere within your query term.
Note that without a wild card, a word is treated as a full word search. For example, a search for kiwi will return only results where the word kiwi is used but a search for kiwi* will return results for kiwi, kiwifruit and any other word that starts with kiwi. | |
| antro* | Find records containing words beginning with antro. | |
| *diella | Find records containing words that end with diella. | |
| antro*ia | Find records with words that start with antro and end with ia. | |
| Field search | collector:Johnston | Specify the field name followed by a colon and then the search query. There is no space between the colon and the search query. It’s important that the correct case be used for the field definition. Fields start with a lower-case letter, contain no spaces and use camel case for multiple words (see collectionMethod example). Any facet can be searched directly in this way. |
| collectionMethod:sweeping | ||
| collectionMethod:"malaise trap" | ||
| Context search | collectionEventContext:sweeping | This searches all of the text within the collection events. Currently collection event is the only context we have set up. Do you find this concept useful? Are there other contexts you would like to see set up? |
| Complex field and context searches | You can build complex queries using this syntax. | |
| class:liliopsida AND collectionMonth:January | Find all collections with the class Liliopsida that were collected in January | |
| class:liliopsida AND (collectionMonth:january OR collectionMonth:march) | Find all the records with class Liliopsida that were collected in January or March. | |
| Negative field/context searches | class:liliopsida -collectionMonth:january | Find everything with a Class of Liliopsida, but not collected in the month of January. |
| -country:"New Zealand" | Find everything without New Zealand specified as a country. | |
| -country:* | Find everything that does not have a country specified. | |
| Date searching | Jan 1910 | Find any records with Jan or 1910 in any field (doesn't have to be a date field). |
| "Jan 1910" | Find any records with Jan 1910 in any field (doesn't have to be a date field). | |
| eventDateText:Sep* | Find records with a Specimen event verbatim date field containing a word starting Sep | |
| collectionDate:19980219 | Find records with a Standard collection date of 1998-02-19. The format is similar to the ISO date format, but without dashes. To find records with a standard collection date of 1998-02, enter 19980200 | |
| verbatimCollectionDate:"19 Feb 1998" | Find records with a Collection Verbatim date text of 19 Feb 1998 or 19-FEB-1998 | |
| Range searching | collectionYear:[1950 TO 1959] | Find everything from 1950 to 1959. |
| collectionYear:[* TO 1959] | Find everything before and including 1959. | |
| collectionYear:[1950 TO *] | Find everything after and including 1950. | |
| -collectionYear:[* TO *] | Find everything that doesn’t have a collection year specified. | |
| Note: The range displayed in the facets may be beyond that specified in these examples because some specimens contain multiple collection events. | ||
| Proximity search | "urban park"~150 | This returns as a match any record where the words urban and park occur within 150 words of each other |
Searchable fields
