Using the key restrict operator

This topic explains how to use the key restrict operator (:) in queries that contain Boolean search.

The colon (:) character is a key restrict operator that is used to limit a search to specified attributes, regardless of whether the attributes are included in the search interface.

For example, if you have two attributes (Actor and Director), you can issue a query that involves a Boolean expression consisting of both the Actor and Director attributes (for example, "Search for records where the director was DeNiro and the actor does not include Pacino."). The two attributes do not need to be included in the same search interface.

Users can successfully conduct a search on this using the following query, which will return the desired result:

Actor:Deniro AND NOT Director:Pacino

The key restrict feature is useful because it allows you to search for attributes that are outside of the search interface configuration.

The key restrict operator (:) binds only to the words or expressions adjacent to it. The resulting search is case-sensitive. The key restrict syntax is:

attribute:value

Note that there cannot be spaces between the attribute and colon, nor between the colon and the value.

To illustrate how the operator binds only to the words or expressions adjacent to it, consider this query:

car maker:aston martin

The query will search for the word "car" against the specified search interface, the word "aston" against the attribute named maker, and the word "martin" against the specified search interface.

If you intend to search for the phrase "aston martin" against the attribute named maker, then you would use double quotes for the phrase:

maker:"aston martin"

You can also use the conjunctive search format using parentheses:

maker:(aston martin)

This query does a conjunctive (All) search for the words "aston" and "martin" against the maker attribute.