KOS Developer's Portal

Search Instructions

Intro

Search by typing your query into the search bar and then pressing <Enter>.
Perform an empty search to open this help page.
All searches are case-insensitive.

Query Syntax

This section describes how to search for specific text.

Single term

Enter a single word as-is. You must enter a complete word or use wildcard character(s).

car  ->  car | Car | CAR

Phrases

Phrases are defined word sequences. Not only are the individual terms within the phrase decisive, but also the order in which they appear. Use single or double quotes to indicate a phrase.

"my car is red"     ->  "My car is RED"
'YOUR CAR IS BLUE'  ->  'Your car is Blue'

Wildcard searches

Use wildcards to replace one or more characters in your search query. They can be used both at the end and in the middle of a term, but not at the beginning.

One character

The question mark (?) finds exactly one character.

c?r  ->  car | CCR  but does not find "cr" or "care"

Zero or more characters

The asterisk (*) finds zero or more characters. For example, you can search for other forms of a term, such as the plural.

c*r   ->  cr  | char | cheaper
car*  ->  car | cars | carbon

Boolean operators

You use logical operators to make connections between terms within a search query. The operators must be written in CAPITALS so that the search engine doesn’t mistake them for normal search terms.

OR

The "OR" link is standard when you simply enter two terms one after the other. One of the two terms must be mandatory, but they can also be included together in the document. You can create this link with OR, ||, or by not entering an operator at all.

car red / car OR red / car || red  ->  finds articles that contain any combination of these words

AND

With an "AND" link, both terms must be included in the document for it to appear as a result. You can also use two consecutive ampersands.

car AND red / car && red && fast  ->  finds articles that contain all of these words

+ (PLUS)

Use the plus sign (+) to build a specific case using the OR link. If you place the character directly in front of a word, this term must appear, while the other terms are optional.

+car red  ->  finds articles that contain "car" which may or may not contain "red"

NOT

The "NOT" link excludes certain terms or phrases from the search. To exclude an item, place an exclamation mark (!) or a minus sign (-) directly before the desired term. You cannot use the NOT operator with a single term or phrase.

car red -blue  ->  finds articles that contain either "car" or "red" but do not contain "blue"
car red !blue

Regular expression searches

Regular expressions enable you to search for several terms at the same time, some of which have similarities and some of which differ from one another. Unlike placeholders, you define exactly which deviations should be taken into account. Use slashes and square brackets for this.

/be[ae]n/  ->  bean | been

Fuzzy searches

You perform a fuzzy search if, for example, you want there to be an error tolerance. Using the Damerau-Levenshtein distance (a formula that evaluates similarities), you can set how large the deviation may be. Use the tilde symbol (~) for this. Distances from 0 to 2 are permitted.

car~1  ->  cat

Proximity searches

Use the tilde if you want to receive phrases that are also similar to the entered phrase. For example, you can specify that you want to search for two terms even if there are other words between them.

"car red"~3  ->  "car is fast and red"

Boosting

The search engine gives you the opportunity to give individual terms or phrases more relevance in the search than others. This influences the sorting of the results. You set the boosting factor with the circumflex accent (^) followed by a value.

"car^2 red" finds articles where the word "car" is more important than the word "red"

Grouping

You can use parentheses to group terms within search queries. This is how you create more complex entries by linking several terms together.

car AND (red OR blue)  ->  finds articles that contain "car" and also either "red" or "blue"

Special characters

To use characters that have special meaning in the query syntax, escape them with a backslash. For example, you can include a question mark in a search query without the parser interpreting it as a placeholder.

Special characters are:

+  -  &&  ||  !  (  )  {  }  [  ]  ^  "  ~  *  ?  :

"Where is my car\?"  ->  finds "Where is MY car?"

Filtering

Using types

All articles are "typed" with one identifier. These are:

studio
java
ui
native

You can use these types to fine-tune your search results.

type:java        ->  finds all articles in the "Java" section
car AND type:ui  ->  finds all UI articles that contain the word "car"

Using tags

Many articles are "tagged" with one or more indentifiers, such as "appnote", "java", "typescript", etc. It is possible to filter your results based on these tags. To do so, use the following syntax:

The word "tag" followed by a colon ":" followed by the desired pre-defined tag.

tag:appnote  ->  finds all application notes

The following are the available tags:

appnote
java
typescript

You can combine these as you would any other search terms:

tag:appnote AND tag:ui
tag:typescript AND (dispenser OR futurework)

More Info

For more information and examples, see: Lucene Query Parser Syntax