%value{&header_tag}%value{&body_tag}
Searching
Before discussing the various search methods, a few overall points:
Japan
'' would
find exactly the same things as searching for ``japan
''). It also
doesn't matter for romaji, but capitalized romaji makes no sense.
*.txt
'', ``data??96
'', etc.) can be used.
In addition, you can also use certain regular expression constructs as well,
such as ``(
'', ``)
'', ``?
'', etc..
The search types are:
"ultra"
would find words like ``ultramodern''
and ``ultranational'', as well as ``ultra'' itself.
The "Word Starting With Pattern" search merely does a "Word Matching
Pattern" search after appending ``*
'' to the pattern.
*
'' is prepended
to the pattern instead of appended.
^
'' really refers to the
start of the edict line, and not to the start of a word.
art
'' will result in finding entries dealing with art, but also ones
dealing with ``cartoons'', ``earth'', ``starting'',
etc.
You can make the search more specific by listing multiple requirements,
joining them with `` AND
''. For example, if you specify the
English search ``japan
'', you'll end up with many, many matches,
and it might be hard to find just what you're looking for.
But if you know it has something to do with islands, for example, you could enter the search
japan AND islandWhen in the default Word Starting With Pattern mode, this would mean ``among all entries that have the words starting with ``japan'', list those that also have a word starting with ``island''.
This results in a much more manageable half-a-dozen entries.
The same search while in the Word Matching Pattern mode would mean ``among all entries that have the word ``japan'', list those that also have the word ``island''. This would miss entries that refer to ``Japanese islands''. This is why "Word Starting With Pattern" is the default, as I think it's normally the most convenient.
Another example would might be looking up the word for a curve, in
baseball. In looking up the English ``curve
'' alone or
``baseball
'' alone, either result in long lists of matching entries.
However, looking up
baseball AND curvewould list only entries that had both ``baseball'' and ``curve'' on them, reducing the list to one!
You can also say `` AND JAPANESE
''
(when doing an English search) or `` AND ENGLISH
'' (when doing a
Japanese search). For example, you're trying to look up the name of a
prefecture that you partially remember as having a naga in it. Listing
just the English ``prefecture
'' lists too many entries to scan easily,
and searching for the Japanese ``naga
'' as anywhere text
results in way too many. The solution is to search for the English
prefecture AND JAPANESE nagaThe result is a more manageable list of three entries.
You can also add a `` NOT
'' after the `` AND
''. To continue the
previous example, you now want to look for an entry dealing with
``prefecture'', but you know the one you're thinking of doesn't have
``ken'' in it. You could specify
prefecture AND NOT JAPANESE kenIf that still doesn't get what you want, you might consider changing the search method to start-or-end-of-word, which will allow the first part (the ``
prefecture
'', in this example) to perhaps match more
entries.
You can also list various alternatives of what also to match or what to not
match, using `` OR
''. For example, say you want to look up the
English word ``make
''. You'll soon see that the word appears in many,
many entries that have nothing to do with the sense you were thinking of,
namely to build or construct something. You could enter
make AND build OR constructAmong all entries that the whole-word ``
make
'' (if you were in
whole-word mode) matched, only entries that also had ``build
''
or ``construct
'' anywhere on them as well will be
selected.
JAPANESE
'' or ``ENGLISH
'' when you
need them, you can use abbreviations.... ``JAP
'' and ``ENG
'',
or even ``J
'' and ``E
''.
waka AND ENG separate OR understand AND NOT wakare OR wakariwould be meaningful. Note that the ``
OR
'' conjunction binds more
tightly than the ``AND
'' conjunctions. In other words, all of the
various words that are OR
ed together in one group (and you can use
more than one ``OR
'' in a group) are part of the previous ``AND
''.
Comments appreciated %value{&footer('search')}