Quick Tips
At its simplest, a query can be just a word or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can expand the focus of your query to give you more complete results. These tips will get you started with basic query language and acquaint you with the full power of the Center of Theological Inquiry Index Server.
- Look for words with the same prefix.
Example - type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.- Search for all forms of a word.
Example - type sink** to find sink, sinking, sank, and sunk.- Search with the keyword NEAR, rather than AND, for words close to each other.
Example - type system AND manager or system NEAR manager, to look for the words system and manager on the same page.But with NEAR, the returned pages are ranked in order of proximity: The closer together the words are, the higher the rank of that page.
- Put quotation marks around keywords if you want the CTI Index Server to take them literally.
Example - type the following query:"system near manager"
The CTI Index Server will literally look for the complete phrase system near manager. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:
system near manager
The CTI Index Server searches all documents for the words system and manager on the same page. This search would also include all occurrences of the phrase system and manager.
- Refine your queries with the AND NOT keywords to exclude certain text.
Example - type surfing AND NOT the Net, to find all instances of surfing but not surfing the Net.
OTHER QUERY EXAMPLES@size > 1000000Pages larger than one million bytes @write > 97/12/23
Pages modified after the date Apple tree
Pages with the phrase “apple tree” "apple tree"
Same as above @contents apple tree
Same as above Princeton and @size > 1000000
Pages with the word “Princeton” that are larger than one million bytes "microsoft and @size > 1000000"
Pages with the phrase specified (not the same as above) #filename *.avi
Video files (the # prefix is used because the query contains a regular expression) @attrib ^s 32
Pages with the archive attribute bit on @docauthor = John Calvin
Pages with the given author $contents why is the sky blue?
Pages that match the query @size < 100 & #filename *.gif
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) files less than 100 bytes in size
