#Please insert up references in the next lines (line starts with keyword UP) UP arb.hlp UP glossary.hlp #Please insert subtopic references (line starts with keyword SUB) #SUB subtopic.hlp # Hypertext links in helptext can be added like this: LINK{ref.hlp|http://add|bla@domain} #************* Title of helpfile !! and start of real helpfile ******** TITLE Searching OCCURRENCE ARB_NT/Species/Search and Query ARB_NT/Genome/Search and Query DESCRIPTION This describes the search feature in ARB. When we talk about 'items' below, we mean e.g. 'species', 'genes', etc., depending which search tool you are currently using. SECTION SEARCH FIELD Each search expression applies either - to a specific item field (e.g. 'full_name') or - if you select the '[any field]' pseudo search field, all direct database subentries of the item are searched for the expression. This does NOT work for subcontainers (i.e. 'ali16s/data' is not searched). SECTION SEARCH EXPRESSION - Each expression tries to match the complete field content, i.e. searching for 'test' will match only fields which exactly contain 'test' (not 'my test' or 'testing'). - If you search for '' (empty expression), all fields w/o data, i.e. all non-existing fields will be found. - if you want to match all fields that contain some substring then use wildcards: - '*' will match any number of characters (including no characters). - '?' will match exactly one character If the whole search expression is '*', then it is handled like '?*' (which means 'at least one character'). So searching for '*' will report all existing fields. Examples: '*pseu*' matches all fields with the substring 'pseu' 'pyrococcus*' matches all fields starting with 'pyrococcus' '*bact*ther*' matches all fields with the substring 'bact' followed by 'ther' (there may be many characters in-between or none, i.e. it as well matches 'bactther') - if the first character is '<' or '>' and the rest is a number, then a numerical comparison is done: - '<7' matches all fields containing a number smaller than 7 - '>10' matches all fields containing a number greater than 10 Be careful: Negating '<7' does NOT only match numbers greater or equal to seven. It as well finds all non-numeric contents. Use something like '>6.999' instead. - if the first character is '/' then the following regular expression is used for the query (see LINK{regexpr.hlp}). - if the first character is '|' then the following ACI expression is evaluated and the query hits, if the evaluation is not "0". See LINK{commands.hlp}. - if the query string is completely empty, it hits if the selected field does not exist. SECTION SORTING RESULTS Search results are displayed unsorted by default. You can sort them, by selecting a different order with the sort radio button. The available sort criteria are unsorted display items like they are stored in database by value sort by content of first query field by id sort by unique item id (e.g. 'name' for species) by parent sort by globally unique id of parent item (e.g. 'name' of organism for genes) by marked sort marked before unmarked items by hit sort by (and display) hit description (the hit description tells you why an item was hit by query) reverse reverts previously selected sort order ARB remembers and uses all the sort criteria you apply. Example: Selecting 'by id' will sort the items by their id (e.g. 'name'). If you select 'by value' afterwards, ARB will sort items by the content of the first query field - if the contents of some items are equal, it will still sort them by name. NOTES Wildcarded or exact search always searches case insensitive. Regular expression search always searches case sensitive. EXAMPLES see LINK{sp_search.hlp} WARNINGS Using ACI is a bit tricky here, cause you cannot see what happens. Using 'trace(1)' somewhere in the ACI expression starts to print an ACI trace to the console. Don't forget to use 'trace(0)' afterwards, otherwise that may slow down ARB. BUGS No bugs known