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<title>W3C mailing-lists search - help page</title>
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<h1 id="title">
<a href="http://www.w3.org/"><img alt="W3C" width="110" height="61" id="logo" src="http://validator.w3.org/images/w3c.png" /></a>
<a href="./"><span>
Mailing-lists Search service</span></a></h1>
<p id="tagline">Search messages in the W3C Mailing-List archives</p>
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<div class="doc">
<h2>W3C Mail Archive Search Engine Help</h2>

<p><a name="skip" id="skip"></a></p>

<h3>Table of contents</h3>
<div class="toc">
<ul>
 <li><a class="toc" href="#general">General hints</a></li>
 <li><a class="toc" href="#keywords">Keywords search</a></li>
 <li><a class="toc" href="#select">Selecting sources to search</a></li>
 <li><a class="toc" href="#header">Specific (header) search</a>
  <ul>
   <li><a class="toc" href="#subject">Subject</a>: search in mail titles</li>
   <li><a class="toc" href="#from">From</a>: look for all messages by one person</li>
   <li><a class="toc" href="#date">Date</a>: find mails in a given period</li>
  </ul>
 </li>
</ul>
</div>


<h3><a name="general" id="general"></a>General hints for a better, more efficient search</h3>
<h4>Basic query</h4>
<p>Enter one (or more) keywords in the input box, submit, and "voila".</p>
<form action="">

<table class="search">
<tr class="search">
<td class="search">Look for (Keywords):</td>

<td>
<input name="keywords" type="text" size="42" maxlength="100" value="lazy dog" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

<h4>Refining your query</h4>

<p>By default, this search system looks up documents matching your
search query in the <strong>wider range available</strong>. A likely
consequence is that there will be a lot of results, which can be
annoying. If you have information about the message(s) you're looking
for, <strong>use it</strong> with the <a href="#header">Header
search</a> or <a href="#select">select</a> a specific list or group of
lists to search among.</p>


<h3><a name="keywords" id="keywords"></a>Keywords search</h3>
<h4>Keywords search - How to</h4>
<p>You can enter one or more keywords (separated by spaces), or write a "phrase" understood by our
<a href="http://www.namazu.org/doc/manual.html#query">Namazu</a> engine. </p>

<h5>Multiple word query</h5>

<ul>
<li>If you enter more than one term (separated by spaces), the engine will search documents matching <strong>all terms</strong>.</li>
<li>If you want to search documents matching <strong>any term</strong>, just use "<code>a OR b</code>".</li>
<li>You can <strong>ignore</strong> results matching a term by using "<code>a NOT b</code>".</li>
<li>For advanced boolean fun, create groups with parenthesis+whitespace : "<code>( fox OR dog ) NOT lazy</code>".<br />
<strong>Note</strong> : the white spaces are <strong> mandatory</strong>.</li>
<li>You can perform <strong>phrase search</strong> by surrounding terms with curly braces (no whitespace) : "<code>{a b c}</code>".<br />
single quotes are OK, too. <br />
(some bugs may remain, use at your own risks ;) )</li>
</ul>

<form action="">
<table class="search">
<tr class="search">
<td class="search">Look for (Keywords):</td>
<td>
<input name="keywords" type="text" size="42" maxlength="100" value="( {lazy dog} or fox ) not jumps" />
</td></tr></table>
</form>

<h5>Case, substrings and regular expressions</h5>
<ul>
<li>Search is case insensitive. It means that "<code>lazy dog</code>" and "<code>LAZY DOG</code>" are equivalent queries.</li>
<li>Use "<code>*</code>" for substring search:
	<ul>
	<li>Prefix matching : "<code>laz*</code>" (terms which begin with <code>laz</code>)</li>
	<li>Nest matching : "<code>*dog*</code>" (terms which contain <code>dog</code>)</li>
	<li>Suffix matching : "<code>*over</code>" (terms which end with <code>over</code>)</li>
	</ul>
Because it will likely return a lot of results, we do <strong>no recommend</strong> using substrings-based queries. You've been warned.</li>
<li>Really advanced users can have a look at <a href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/">Ruby</a> regular expressions. it looks like Perl.
You can use those by surrounding them with slashes
(ex: "<code>/pro(gram|blem)s?/</code>").</li></ul>

<h3><a name="select" id="select"></a>Selecting sources to search</h3>
<p>You can choose where to perform the search by either choosing a
list or group proposed by the menu, or enter one or several list names (separated with whitespaces) in the dedicated field.</p>

<p>
<strong>Important note</strong> : do not forget to select the method you want to use by "clicking" the proper radio button.
</p>


<h3><a name="header" id="header"></a>Header search</h3>

<p>Keyword search is the "basic" search, looking for a set of words
in the whole message. In some case, you may want to search messages
according to a specific piece of information. This is what "header
search" is for.</p>

<p>Header search are both available with the simplified and full interface.<br/>
With header search, you can search, or refine your query, based on information included in the mail headers.</p>

<ul>
  <li><a name="subject" id="subject"></a><strong>Subject</strong> : search a pattern in the subject, title, object of the message.</li>
  <li><a name="from" id="from"></a><strong>From</strong> : search a pattern in the name, or e-mail of the author of the message.</li>
  <li><a name="message-id" id="message-id"></a><strong>Message-Id</strong> : the message id is a unique identifier for each message in the internet. You can search a pattern in this idenfier</li>
<li><a name="date" id="date"></a><strong>Date Search</strong> - search mails in a given period: it is possible to limit search results to a specific month, or year. Keep the month selection blank to limit search results to the whole year.</li>
</ul>
<p>Note that header search is a pattern search. If you enter "foo" in the from field, it will look for messages including the "foo" substring. This means that "<b>Foo</b>bar Smith &lt;me@example.com&gt;" or "Bernard &lt;du<b>foo</b>r@example.com&gt;" will match.</p>


<h4><a name="head-ex" id="head-ex"></a>Examples of header search</h4>
<h5>Refining a query with header search.</h5>
<form action="">
<table class="search">
<tr class="search">
<td class="search">
Look for (Keywords):</td>

<td>
<input name="keywords" type="text" size="42" maxlength="100" value="example" />
</td></tr>
<tr class="search">
<td class="search">
<select name="hdr-1-name"><option value="subject" >subject</option>
<option value="from" selected="selected">from</option><option value="message-id">message-id</option>
</select>
</td>
<td class="search"><input name="hdr-1-query" type="text" size="42" maxlength="100" value="bob" /><br /></td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>(Search messages from bob with the word "example" in it)</p>
</form>

<h5>Search only in headers</h5>
<form action="">
<table class="search">
<tr class="search">
<td class="search">
Look for (Keywords):</td>
<td>
<input name="keywords" type="text" size="42" maxlength="100" value="" />
</td></tr>
<tr class="search">
<td class="search">
<select name="hdr-1-name"><option value="subject" >subject</option>
<option value="from" selected="selected">from</option><option value="message-id">message-id</option>
</select>
</td>
<td class="search"><input name="hdr-1-query" type="text" size="42" maxlength="100" value="bob" /><br /></td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>(Search messages from bob)</p>
</form>

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 <ul id="menu" class="navbar">
 <li><a rel="help" accesskey="h" href="../Help" title="Documentation for this Service">Search Help</a></li>
 <li><a href="../Help" title="Source Code and developer info">Developers' Corner</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://lists.w3.org/" title="W3C mailing-list archives">W3C Lists</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.w3.org/Mail/" title="W3C Mailing-Lists administrativia and policies">Mail Guidelines</a></li>
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This is <acronym title="The W3C Mail Archive Search Engine">MASE</acronym>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org"><acronym title="The World wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym></a>'s
<a href="http://www.w3.org/Search/Mail/">Mailing-lists Archive Search Engine</a>.<br />
Maintained and developed by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/olivier/">olivier Thereaux</a>
and <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Eric/">Eric Prud'hommeaux</a>.
</address>
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