Specifying a search expression

Search

This is where you specify your search arguments which are one or more words connected by AND & or OR | clauses and perform an index search.

Specify a search expression in the search field to list matching words in the index. Position the cursor to the display word and press Enter to display an indexed search report.

To retrieve a previous search value, press Enter with a blank search value. Use the S prefix command to retrieve a previous search from the displayed list.

The search field is scrollable so use the F10 (left), F11 (right), and F4 (expand) keys to enter more than the displayed width.

Expression rules
The following rules apply when specifying the search expression:
  • Each word specified must be no more than 46 characters long.
  • The word can contain the following wild card characters so that pattern matching is performed: asterisk (*) or % (percent) sign.
    *
    Represents any number of characters. For example: *ABC* can be specified to match any word containing the characters ABC.
    %
    Matches any value in the specific position represented by the percent sign. For example: %ABC% can be specified to match any word that is 5 bytes long and contains ABC starting in the second byte.
  • If only one word without a wild card character is specified, then it is treated as a prefix for matching words.
  • If more than one word is specified, then words without wild card characters are matched exactly with index words.
  • When the AND (&) connector is used in the expression, the index list displays the first word in the expression.. The number of occurrences is limited to lines that contain matches for all words in the expression. Any combination of AND (&) and OR (|) values are allowed in the one expression.
Example 1: AA & BB & CC
Result:

AA with the number of occurrences limited to lines containing BB and CC word values.

Example 2: AA | BB & CC | EE & FF
Result:
  • AA: All lines containing AA as a word value.
  • BB: With the number of occurrences limited to lines containing CC word values.
  • EE: With the number of occurrences limited to lines containing FF word values.
Example 3: AA* | BB* & CC*
Result:
  • AA*: All lines containing words with AA as a prefix.
  • BB*: Lines that contain both BB and CC prefixed words