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Search syntax reference

In these guidelines:

• The search box is indicated by   
• Definitions for special terms, such as alphanumeric, are listed at the end of this topic.

Search terms

• A search term can use both alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric (symbol) characters.
• Searches do not distinguish between upper- and lower-case letters. Your terms will be converted to maximize the search results, regardless of capitalization: gear and GEAR will return the same results.
• Multiple search terms are separated by a space: specifying film resistor searches all items with the terms film or resistor or both.
• If you want to search for a particular sequence of words, enclose it in quotes. For example, "plated machine screw" only returns items with that exact sequence of terms in a single data field.
• Spaces and punctuation within quotes are ignored: "screw, pan head" will return the same results as "screw pan head".
• A blank search (that is, there are no search terms specified) will not return any results.
• Blank results indicate that (1) there are no matching records, or (2) the search terms are so broad that the search engine cannot construct a useful selection string. In both cases, refine your search by adding new or different terms.

Operators

• You can specify a single-character wildcard with the ? operator. For example, t?re would return items with words like tire and tyre but not there.

• You can specify a multi-character wildcard with the * operator. For example, document* would return items with words like document and documentation.

• To search for terms near to one another, enclose the terms in quotes and specify the maximum distance using the ~ operator. The criteria "10uF tantalum"~3 will return all items with up to 3 words intervening between 10uF and tantalum.

• To ensure a specific term is included in your results, use the plus (+) operator. The criteria flat +washer will return items with washer and may or may not include flat.

• To reduce the number of items returned, you can put a minus (-) operator immediately in front of a term that you want to exclude: hardware -rivet returns all hardware items that don't include the term rivet. You can also use uppercase NOT: hardware NOT rivet

• You can create logical expressions within criteria using AND (or &&) and OR (or ||) between terms. The && operator will return items when all terms are present, while the || operator will return items with one or more of the terms present.

  By default, the OR operator is applied between all terms of your search, and need not be explicitly used except when including other operators (see next example).

• Logical expressions contained within parentheses will be evaluated before those outside. The expression wire && (copper || steel) will return items with either copper wire or steel wire or both; (wire && copper) || steel will return copper wire or anything steel or both.

• Use the [ TO ] operator to search for a range of up to 100 items. Duplicate items are counted as part of the 100 results, but will not be displayed. The criteria [10123 TO 10369] will display up to 100 items sequentially ordered between the two terms (inclusive).

System tags

There are special system-level keywords or "tags" that are automatically and transparently attached to items.

• The class tags (document, part and change) let you select a specific item class.

• The revision state tags (pending, released and canceled) are applied to each item's most recent revision.

• Change lifecycle state tags enable you to search for change forms that have a specific lifecycle value by using the filter: prefix, as  filter:state. The search filter:RTD will return changes at routed, while the expression filter:(ORG OR SUB) will return change forms that are at the originated or submitted lifecycle state.

  The change lifecycle state tags are:

  • ORG originated
  • SUB submitted
  • RTD routed
  • HLD held
  • ACC accepted
  • REL released
  • CMP completed
  • STP stopped
  • REJ rejected
  • CAN canceled

Invalid queries

• You cannot search for stop words such as a, an, and the.

• You cannot directly search for the operators + - && || ! ( ) { } ^ " ~ * ? : \  You can search for these using the backslash character, such as \+ and \:

Definitions

valid character

Any user-entered Unicode character, excluding non-displayable control characters

alphanumeric character

Any valid character in ranges A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9, or its local language Unicode equivalent

symbol

Any valid character that is not an alphanumeric character

number

A sequence of one or more valid characters in the range 0 to 9

date

A number representing ISO 8601 date format YYYYMMDD

operator

A symbol that signals special treatment for the immediately-following term

token

A sequence of one or more valid characters

term

A token, or a sequence of valid characters enclosed in single or double quotes; any valid operator that immediately precedes the term acts on the term but is not considered a part of it

stop word

A token that is not indexed because it's very common and probably won't differentiate one item from another

criteria

The set of all terms and operators used to define the search

Operators acting on a single term

? (question mark)

Indicates that any single character can be matched (cannot be first character in term).

* (asterisk)

Indicates that one or more characters can be matched (cannot be first character in term).

+ (plus)

Indicates that the immediately-following term is required (prefix only).

- (minus)

Indicates that the immediately-following term should be excluded (prefix only).

~ (tilde)

Indicates that the immediately-following number is the maximum distance permitted between the tokens contained in the quoted term (prefix only).

Operators between two terms

[ TO ]

A range between, and inclusive of, two terms. The range must be enclosed by square brackets [ ].

&& (double ampersand)

A logical AND between two terms. Can also use the uppercase AND operator.

|| (double pipe)

A logical OR between two terms. Can also use the uppercase OR operator.

Grouping operators

( ) (parentheses)

Used to make logical grouping of terms for Boolean (AND/&& or OR/||) evaluation

" " (paired double quotes)

Used to enclose one or more valid characters to create a term

Parsing rules

• Any symbol that is not an operator is treated as whitespace.
• Prior to parsing, operators (e.g., && and ||) are added, and stop words may be removed.
• All whitespace is removed prior to parsing, leaving only terms and operators.

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