Full-Text Queries
SureClinical eTMF documents can be searched using full-text queries; the standard way to do so is to use the top-right "search" box in the SureClinical eTMF Platform. Search queries are expressed in a SureClinical-defined syntax, described below.
SureClinical eTMF Full-Text Query Syntax
A full-text query is a sequence of space-separated words. In addition:
Words are implicitly AND-ed together.
- A word can start with - to signify negation (the word must not be present).
- A word can end with * to signify prefix search (the word must start with this prefix).
- Ending a word with % instead of * for prefix search is also supported for historical reasons
- You can use OR between words (it has a lower precedence than the implicit AND).
- You can enclose several words in double quotes " for a phrase search (the words must exactly follow each other).
Examples
- Documents containing both hello and world and which do not contain smurf:
hello world -smurf
- Documents containing hello and a word starting with worl:
hello worl*
- Documents containing both hello and world, or documents containing smurf but not containing black:
hello world OR smurf -black
- Documents containing hello followed by world and also containing smurf:
"hello world" smurf
Important Notes and Limitations
The following limitations apply:
- A query term (sequence of AND-ed words without an OR) containing only negations will not match anything.
- Partial text matching is supported however it requires the addition of an asterisk character e.g. 'LIC*'. Asterisk wildcard may appear in the term end only.
- 'ABC DEF' is interpreted as search for documents which contain both words 'ABC' and 'DEF'. Term 'ABC DEF' is equal to 'ABC AND DEF' by the search engine.
Additional Examples
- 'ABC DEF' -> search for documents which contain both words 'ABC' and 'DEF'
- 'ABC OR DEF' -> search for documents which contain one of or both words 'ABC' or 'DEF'
- 'LIC' -> search for documents which contain word 'LIC' like license
- 'LIC*' -> search for documents which contain characters 'LIC' (important note: addition of asterisk at end of term)
Comments