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Searching

Before discussing the various search methods, a few overall points: There are several search methods to regulate how the text you enter. Most of them are similar in that the wildcard pattern similar to filename patterns (a'la ``*.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:

Be careful about using the Pattern Anywhere search. Intending to look up ``art'' will result in finding entries dealing with art, but also ones dealing with ``cartoons'', ``earth'', ``starting'', etc.

More Advanced Searches

The following applies to all but the Regular Expression Search

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 island
When 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 curve
would 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 naga
The 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 ken
If 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 construct
Among 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.

Shorthand

Instead of typing the full ``JAPANESE'' or ``ENGLISH'' when you need them, you can use abbreviations.... ``JAP'' and ``ENG'', or even ``J'' and ``E''.

Even More Advanced Searches

You can actually combine all these a fair number of times. Something like the Japanese anywhere search
  waka AND ENG separate OR understand AND NOT wakare OR wakari
would be meaningful. Note that the ``OR'' conjunction binds more tightly than the ``AND'' conjunctions. In other words, all of the various words that are ORed together in one group (and you can use more than one ``OR'' in a group) are part of the previous ``AND''.

Comments appreciated
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