Search functionality
Overview
The search functionality was originally based on a LIKE condition added to the SELECT query which translated to a simple wildcard search - finding whatever you typed in if it was part of the row.
From version 1.0b3, however, the search has been converted to a GLOB clause which results in a few extra options that are available to you when searching.
There are two wildcard characters available to you and they are:
- * Matches any number of any character
- ? Matches a single character (again, any character)
Asterisks are added to both ends of the term(s) that you search for. So a search for cde would find the word abcdefgh. Also, you can add a ! to the start of a word or sequence of characters to negate it.
So a search for the phrase john !Barry would find rows that contain the word john but not with the word barry.
Character classes
Similar to regular expressions you can use square brackets - [] - to define a range of characters. So the following: [abcdef] would match any of those characters - but only one of them. And you can also negate the character class by adding a caret sign at the start like this: [^abcdef] Remember though that this type of character class only matches a single character and if you negate the class it will match any character that's not in that class.
Negating a whole word
If you want to negate a whole word (so maybe you could search for: big yellow !balloons, which would look for rows that contain the words big and yellow but not the word balloons) then you can prefix an exclamation point to that word.
Examples
| black | Search for rows that contain the word black |
| !black | Search for rows that DO NOT contain the word black |
| jack black | Search for rows that contain both of the words jack and black |
| jack !black | Search for rows that contain the word jack but DO NOT contain the word black |
| ja[chdrt]k | Search for rows that contain the given word where the third character can be c,h,d,r or t |
| ja[^chdrt]k | Search for rows that contain the given word where the third character MUST NOT be c,h,d,r or t |