Selects documents by matching the character string you specify with values stored in a specific document field. Documents are selected only if the search elements specified match the field value exactly.
You can use question marks (?) to represent individual variable characters within a string, and asterisks (*) to match multiple characters within a string.
For example, assume a document field named SOURCE
includes
the following values:
COMPUTER COMPUTERWORLD COMPUTER CURRENTS PC COMPUTING
To locate documents whose source is COMPUTER
, the MATCHES
operator is used as follows:
SOURCE <MATCHES> computer
Here, the MATCHES
operator matches COMPUTER
,
but not COMPUTERWORLD
, COMPUTER CURRENTS
, or
PC COMPUTING
.
To locate documents whose source is COMPUTERWORLD
, the
MATCHES
operator is used as follows:
SOURCE <MATCHES> computer?????
Now, the MATCHES
operator matches
COMPUTERWORLD
, since each question mark (?) represents
specific character positions within the string. COMPUTER
and
COMPUTER CURRENTS
are not matched, because their character
strings do not match the length represented by the specific character
positions.
To locate documents whose sources are COMPUTER
,
COMPUTERWORLD
, and COMPUTER CURRENTS
, the
MATCHES
operator is used as follows:
SOURCE <MATCHES> computer*
Here, the MATCHES
operator matches COMPUTER
,
COMPUTERWORLD
, and COMPUTER CURRENTS
, since the
asterisk (*) represents zero or more variable characters at the end of the
string.
To locate documents whose sources include COMPUTER
,
COMPUTERWORLD
, COMPUTER CURRENTS
, and PC
COMPUTING
, the MATCHES
operator can be used as
follows:
SOURCE <MATCHES> *comput*
Now, the MATCHES
operator matches all four occurrences,
since the asterisk (*) represents a character string of any length.