Searching tips - using quotation marks

[Mark Whiteside]

Always wondered if I'm using the search tool properly.

Occasionally run into problems with common search terms/words returning large search results.

example:

looking for a track by C.F.D. & Co. called Disco Hop

searching for Disco Hop returns too many search results.

I know the artist name C.F.D. & Co. could be spelled without full stops, with/without spaces so too many variations. C F D returns too many search results, CFD returns hardly any.

Is there a way to type in Disco Hop (using quotation marks etc.) that searches for the two words together either in filename or folder?  Maybe a filter workaround?

I know it can't work like a Google search but any help appreciated!

[Aakash Sawaimoon]

term = match complete term
-term = exclude term
"term" = match phrase
*term = match incomplete term

[Mark Whiteside]

Hi, thanks for that but I'm not sure that works, for me at least.

When I used the quotation marks in the search bar, so typing "Disco Hop" I get results like "best of Disco, Soul, and Hip Hop".

I want to only search for the words Disco Hop as an exact phrase, so only results return where the two words are together (either filename or folder would do)

Were you meaning to use the terms in a different way or is what I'm trying to do impossible?

cheers

[anencephalic]

Hi Mark.

I agree with Aakash's answer except for the "match phrase" part.  During my experimentation, it appears that quotes in the search string have no effect at all.  I vaguely remember that they used to work long ago but now seem to be entirely ignored.  I found this post (https://www.slsknet.org/news/node/2335) from 2014 where Nir says that the search process "needs to have some kind of starting set, meaning it needs to have at least one unquoted token to work with", but even this is no longer true.  My impression from that post is that quoted token searches were a performance burden on users' computers and that might be why they're no longer supported.  But computers today are so much faster than they were back then.  Maybe Nir will reconsider this decision in a future release.

You can't use quotes to do this with the filter either.  There, quotes appear to be interpreted as literal, meaning the result string must include actual quotation marks to match the filter.  So today, the best way to limit your results is to add additional words to the search such as:

3rd World Band Disco Hop

But if you're trying to find only Disco Hop covers regardless of the artist, they'll be needles in a haystack.

[MakeItSoundOldSchool]

I found that search with symbol  "_" isn't delimiter. Example: "name_project_-_name_track.mp3" this file name without .mp3 will be considered full word. And probably symbol dot and dash: "name-project.-.name-track.mp3" so, that's is not completely a full search. Also, I've noticed that search with special symbols output small results. Such as: '('; ')'; '.'; '!'; '?'; '@' etc
Tested in 2019.07.22
I don't know how work a search and whether there have regular expression in code for search. If not, it would be nice update code

Is there even API to server? Just i offen search rare tracks and i need deep search

среда, 9 февраля 2022 г. в 08:06:37 UTC+6, anencephalic:

[David Tzschentke]

deiniftely not true. "term xyz abc" also returns "abc xyz term"