Searching

SearchBlox allows you to perform faceted, API-based and security-enabled search.

• Faceted Search
• Search API
• Secure Search

SearchBlox supports an industry-standard search query syntax with operators and faceted search.

Search Query Syntax

• SearchBlox query syntax is a combination of Elasticsearch query syntax and custom query syntax.

Operators in Search

Fielded Search

Wildcard Search

• SearchBlox supports single and multiple wildcard character search.
• To perform a single character wildcard search, use the ? symbol. To perform a multiple character wildcard search, use the * symbol.
• The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match with the single character replaced.
• To search for text or test you can use the search query: te?t
• Multiple character wildcard searches look for 0 or more characters.
• To search for test, tests, or tester, you can use the search query: test*
• You can also use a wildcard character in the middle of a term. te*t

Fuzzy Search

• SearchBlox supports fuzzy search. Fuzzy search can also be referred to as an approximate search and can fetch results even for incorrect spelling.
• To perform a fuzzy search, use the tilde ~ symbol at the end of a single word term in the search query.
• To search for a term similar in spelling to roam, use the fuzzy search query: roam~
  This search will find terms like foam and roams.
• If you want a fuzzy search for more than one term, fuzzy search operator has to be used separately for each term,
• To perform a fuzzy search on International earth day, use the search query: international~ earth~ day

Proximity Search

• SearchBlox supports proximity search which allows you to find words within a specific distance.
• To do a proximity search, use the tilde ~ symbol at the end of a phrase.
• To search for “searchblox” and “j2ee” within 10 words of each other in a document use the search query: “searchblox j2ee”~10

Exact Search or Phrase Search

• To find documents with the exact phrase, the search query has to be enclosed within double quotes.
• To search the phrase Old is gold, use the search query: “Old is gold"

Boolean Operators

• Boolean operators allow search query terms to be combined through logic operators.
• SearchBlox supports AND, +, OR, NOT and - as Boolean operators
• Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT must be ALL CAPS.

OR Operator

• The OR operator is the default operator in SearchBlox Search API.
• The OR operator finds documents if either of the terms or phrases exists in a document.
• To search for documents that contain either the phrase searchblox server or just the term elasticsearch use the below search query: “searchblox server” OR elasticsearch
• The following search query finds documents with either terms: searchblox j2ee

AND Operator

• The AND operator finds documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of the document.
• To find documents that contain searchblox and j2ee use the following query: searchblox AND j2ee

NOT Operator

• The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT.
• To search for documents that contain “searchblox server” but not “j2ee”, use the search query:
  “searchblox server” NOT j2ee
• The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term.
• The following search will return no results: NOT “searchblox server”

Plus Operator "+"

• The + or required operator requires the term after the + symbol to exist somewhere in the field of a single document.
• To search for documents that must contain searchblox and may contain j2ee use the search query: +searchblox j2ee

Minus Operator "-"

• The -, or minus operator, excludes documents that contain the term after the - symbol.
• To search for documents that contain “searchblox server” but not j2ee use the search query: "searchblox server” -j2ee

Fielded Search

• SearchBlox supports fielded search where you can search within a specific field.
• The default search is performed on content, title, description, and other custom fields that have been mapped to the content.
• This search can be made specific using fielded search.
• Fielded search requires you to give the field name followed by a colon :, and then the search term you are looking for.
• Examples:
  keywords:news
title:world
url:"http://www.bbc.com"
• When performing fielded search on url field, the url has to be enclosed in double-quotes.
• You can perform fielded search on standard fields as well as custom fields.

The following fields that can be used for fielded search queries:

Grouping

• SearchBlox supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub-queries.
• Grouping is useful for users who want to control the Boolean logic for a query.
• To search for either searchblox or server, and j2ee, use the query:
  (searchblox OR server) AND j2ee
• You can also group fielded search with Boolean operators to form complex queries like:
  +travel +world +(title:"news")
(world AND travel) OR keywords:news
((world AND travel) OR keywords:news) AND cnn

Default AND/OR operation

• In Search API when more than one search term is used, the default operator used is OR.
• We support a special parameter &default=AND which can change this query to AND.
• In faceted search we use &default=AND as a standard to make AND search with multiple terms.
• To learn more on this parameter read: Search Parameters

Using Special Characters in Search

SearchBlox uses the sb_analyzer by default. sb_analyzer ignores the special characters; however, the special characters would appear in context. We strip off the special characters while indexing. If you want to retain the special characters for search, you can change the analyzer.

The following characters can be used directly without escape character:

@#$^&-+=|",.?,(),* 

eg: test@

The following characters require escape character preceding it:

~,{ },!,:, < >,_,[] ,/ \ ,%

eg: test%

Fuzzy search operator i.e., tilde ~ operator cannot be used directly or using an escape character. The search term with characte~r can be enclosed in double-quotes for search.

eg: "test~nest"

To learn about search analyzers and how to handle special characters visit: [Analyzers in SearchBlox] (doc:elasticsearch-custom-analyzers)

Sample Search Queries