Chapter 2

Searching the docs.sun.com Web Site

This chapter describes the Sun Search syntax and options that you use to search the docs.sun.com web site. You can search for every book on this site, regardless of the format. Available formats include:

• XML-based books – Displayed in a hierarchy of chapters and sections. Clicking a search result takes you directly to the relevant information within the book. The search words or phrases are highlighted in red.

• HTML books – Displayed as a set of HTML pages. Clicking a search result takes you directly to the relevant information within the book.

• PDF-only books – Displayed in Adobe® Reader. If you have installed the Adobe Reader plug-in, the book automatically opens and displays in a browser window. Otherwise, you must download and open the PDF book in Adobe Reader.

Examples of information for which you can search include words, phrases, and book part numbers. By default, search results are sorted by relevance.

Note - English is the default language preference on the docs.sun.com site. Before conducting a search in a language other than English, choose the appropriate language preference using the drop-down menu in the top right corner of the page.

Here is a list of the information in this chapter:

• Narrowing Your Search

• Constructing Your Search Syntax

• Working With the Search Results

Narrowing Your Search

By default, Sun Search performs a site search by searching the entire docs.sun.com site. This section describes two options on the docs.sun.com site that enable you to restrict the scope of your search: the book title search and the book search. The following subsections explain how to use these options:

• How to Search Book Titles Only

• How to Search Within a Book

How to Search Book Titles Only

The docs.sun.com site enables you to narrow your search to book titles only. To perform a book title search, precede the search syntax with the word "allintitle" followed by a colon (:). Do not insert a space between "allintitle:" and the search syntax. The site then searches only the titles of books for the word or words that you type.

For example, to search for book titles that include the word "Solaris," you would type the following in the search field: allintitle:solaris. To search for book titles that contain the phrase "system administration," you would enclose the phrase in quotation marks: allintitle:"system administration"

How to Search Within a Book

You can narrow the scope of your search on the docs.sun.com site to a specific book. This book search option is available when you are viewing XML-based books. If you are viewing the table of contents of an HTML-based book, you can also use this option. However, if you are viewing the contents within an HTML-based book, this option is unavailable. Follow these steps:

1. Access the book that you want to search.
   
   You can access the book either through browsing the docs.sun.com site, or by performing a site search and clicking a search result that takes you to the book.

2. Type your search text in the search field.
   
   For more information, see Constructing Your Search Syntax.

3. Select the Search Only This Book check box, which is adjacent to the search field.

4. Click the Go button to submit your query.
   
   The search results for only that book are displayed. For information about interpreting the Sun Search results, see Working With the Search Results.

Constructing Your Search Syntax

By default, the search is based on a Boolean AND. Thus, only documents that include all of your search terms (or words) are returned in the search results. To broaden the search, include fewer words. To narrow the search, include more words.

To find books on the docs.sun.com site that contain one or more words, type the words in the search field. Separate each word by a space. You can also search by part number. The following subsections further explain how to use the Sun Search syntax:

• Word Order Matters

• Search Is Not Case-Sensitive

• Exact Phrase Search

• Common Words

• Excluded Words

Word Order Matters

Sun Search matches words and phrases in consecutive order. Therefore, place the words and phrases in your search query in order of importance.

For example, the search query file system yields different results from the search query system file. The word or phrase that comes first is considered primary, and the related results are ranked higher. The subsequent word or phrase is considered secondary, and the related results are ranked lower.

Search Is Not Case-Sensitive

You can ignore capitalization in your search query. For example, a search for "Sun Fire" yields the same results as a search for "sun fire."

Exact Phrase Search

To find an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in quotation marks (""). You can combine words and phrases in the same search query. For example, when you search for the phrase "solaris system" CD, documents that contain the complete phrase "solaris system" and the word "CD" are listed.

Common Words

By default, Sun Search ignores common words such as "where" and "how" because they tend to slow down your search without improving the search results. However, if a common word is required to obtain the desired search results, you can include it by preceding the word with a plus sign (+). For phrases that include common words, enclose the phrase in quotation marks.

For example, the search query install netbeans +how +to yields search results that must include the common words "how" and "to." Alternatively, you could enclose the phrase "how to" in quotation marks, as in the search query install netbeans "how to"

Excluded Words

If you do not want a certain word to appear in the search results, precede the word with a minus sign (-). The search results will prefer documents with that word excluded, though the word isn't necessarily excluded in all cases. For example, the search query java beans -enterprise yields search results that prefer documents that contain the words "java" and "beans" but exclude the word "enterprise."

Working With the Search Results

This section describes what happens after you submit your search query on the docs.sun.com site.

The total number of search hits is displayed at the top of the search results page. Only 10 search hits are displayed on a single page. If more than 10 search hits are found, the list continues on the next page. Page navigation links are at the top and bottom of the page.

Note - A large number of search hits might indicate that you need to narrow your search, either by changing your search text or by searching within a specific book. For more information, see Constructing Your Search Syntax and Narrowing Your Search.

Note - Password-protected documents are not returned in the search results.

Sorting of Search Results

Search results can be sorted by relevance or by date. The default order is by relevance. Pages in which the search terms appear near each other are preferred.

To instead sort the results by date, click Sort by Date. For this sort, the docs.sun.com site uses the book's publication date, when it is available. Otherwise, the date indicates when the book was last indexed by Sun Search.