Seach keywords or terms

[jay]

Is the search on 3 characters minimum hard and fast? I'[d like to search on XM or other two character terms, and get the *(*(*^^& error message every time about the 3 character minimum. And "space" isn't a character. $%$%$%%!

[kemosabe]

jay: The workaround to the 3-character minimum keyword is this -- search for XM using this search term: *xm

1st character: * (the asterisk wildcard)
2nd character: x
3rd character: m

This should return about 29 threads (as of 12:20 a.m. EST) about XM radios...

[jay]

jay---> <---kemosabe

[florida_guy]

Originally posted by kemosabe
jay: The workaround to the 3-character minimum keyword is this -- search for XM using this search term: *xm

1st character: * (the asterisk wildcard)
2nd character: x
3rd character: m

Great tip Kemo! I've run into that problem a number of times and I never thought of that. Thanks.

[Ziploc]

Originally posted by kemosabe
jay: The workaround to the 3-character minimum keyword is this -- search for XM using this search term: *xm

1st character: * (the asterisk wildcard)
2nd character: x
3rd character: m

This should return about 29 threads (as of 12:20 a.m. EST) about XM radios...

Can't believe that never occurred to me, thinking back to DOS days.
Kemo, ya know your stuff!

[kemosabe]

Originally posted by Ziploc
Can't believe that never occurred to me, thinking back to DOS days.
Kemo, ya know your stuff!

Ziploc ===> <=== kemosabe

[jay]

Originally posted by Ziploc
Can't believe that never occurred to me, thinking back to DOS days.
Kemo, ya know your stuff!

But in the DOS days, ab* woulda worked fine. But no, we gotta use *ab. What's up with that?

[kemosabe]

Originally posted by jay
But in the DOS days, ab* woulda worked fine. But no, we gotta use *ab. What's up with that?

Actually, xm* would've worked, too...

Are you familiar with regular expressions? Here is a quick lesson:

*xm would typically mean zero or more characters followed by the letters "xm". Not many words fit that description except for XM itself, which is why I advised you to use that one.

xm* would typically mean the letters "xm" followed by one or more characters. In this instance, you would still get XM as a valid search result, but your would also get words like Xmas, too.

This was not meant to be an all-encompassing thesis on regular expressions, just a couple of highlights... hope this helps! (Then again, I could be totally blowing smoke up your A$$... )

[colorider]

Originally posted by kemosabe
Actually, xm* would've worked, too...

Are you familiar with regular expressions? Here is a quick lesson:

*xm would typically mean zero or more characters followed by the letters "xm". Not many words fit that description except for XM itself, which is why I advised you to use that one.

xm* would typically mean the letters "xm" followed by one or more characters. In this instance, you would still get XM as a valid search result, but your would also get words like Xmas, too.

This was not meant to be an all-encompassing thesis on regular expressions, just a couple of highlights... hope this helps! (Then again, I could be totally blowing smoke up your A$$... )

I was kinda hoping for a lesson in Unix commands............

Seems like, unless memory fails, ?xm would work there too...

But then, that was in my PREVIOUS life...

[kemosabe]

Originally posted by colorider
I was kinda hoping for a lesson in Unix commands............

Seems like, unless memory fails, ?xm would work there too...

But then, that was in my PREVIOUS life...

That last time I checked, this current version of the vBulletin software only supports the asterisk (*) wildcard in the searches. Other wildcards, such as the caret (^) and dollar ($) symbols (to signify the beginning of a line and end of a line, respectively) along with the (.) to match any character are NOT supported...

In other words, the search engine parsing and expansion of the search term is limited to the asterisk only for this version... Oh well...

[colorider]

Originally posted by kemosabe
That last time I checked, this current version of the vBulletin software only supports the asterisk (*) wildcard in the searches. Other wildcards, such as the caret (^) and dollar ($) symbols (to signify the beginning of a line and end of a line, respectively) along with the (.) to match any character are NOT supported...

In other words, the search engine parsing and expansion of the search term is limited to the asterisk only for this version... Oh well...

See, I told you it was a long time ago!! Good tip in any case on the asterisk!!!!

[kemosabe]

Just as a follow up, the search engine used on honda-pilot.org only allows for the asterisk wildcard in addition to the relational operators (AND/OR/NOT)...