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 - The Search All Books For field searches
the
docs.sun.com site. The Search field on the right side of the masthead
searches the entire sun.com site.
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 under the Search All Books For field.
Here is a list of the information in this chapter:
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
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
"title" followed by a colon (:). Do not
insert a space between "title:" and the search syntax. To find titles
that contain a particular phrase, enclose the phrase in quotation
marks. The site then searches only
the titles of books for the word or phrase that you type.
For example,
to search for book titles that include the word "Solaris," you would
type the following in the Search All Books For field: title:solaris.
To search for book titles that contain the phrase "system
administration," you would enclose the phrase in quotation marks:
title:"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:
- 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.
- Type your search text in
the Search All Books For field.
For more information, see Constructing
Your Search Syntax.
- Select the Search Only
This Book check box, which is adjacent to the Search All Books For
field.
- 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
The search is based on a Boolean OR, meaning that any of the
specified search terms can be present in the documents that are
returned in the search results.
To find books on
the docs.sun.com site that contain one or more words
(or terms), type the words in the Search All
Books For
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:
Note - When searching the docs.sun.com site, Sun
Search ignores books and collections that require a password for
access. However, once you provide a password, you can search locally
within a book, provided that book is XML-based.
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, books that contain the complete phrase "solaris
system" and the word "CD" are listed.
Wildcard Search
To expand the variations
of a search term, use a wildcard operator. The wildcard operators are the
asterisk (*) for partial terms and the question mark
(?) for a single character. The
following describes how to use these operators:
- Asterisk (*) – To
find books that contain variations of a word, include an asterisk in
any position of the word, either at the beginning, in the middle, or
at the end. Wildcard searches can be applied to one or more individual
words, but not to phrases. For example, when you type CD*,
books that contain the words CD, CDs, CD-ROM, CD-ROMs, and
CD_ROM_FOLDER are listed in the search results.
- Question mark (?)
– To find books that contain one-character variations of a search term,
use the question mark in any position of the word. For example, the
search query j2?e
yields search results that include J2EE, J2ME, and J2SE.
Required Words
If
a word or phrase must appear in the search
results, precede the word or phrase with a plus
sign (+). For example, the search query java +"smart card"
yields search results that must include the phrase "smart card."
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."
Searching Within Search Results
To
further refine your search queries, use the pipe symbol (|).
This symbol, also known as the vertical
bar, instructs Sun Search to include the search text on both
sides of the symbol, in which the text to the right of the symbol is a
subset of the text to the left of the symbol. This behavior mimics the
"Search these results" behavior that some search engines provide.
For example, the search query file system yields
many search results. To further refine this search query to yield
results specifically for Solaris ZFS file systems, you could use the
following
syntax: file system | zfs
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.
See following subsections:
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.
Sorting of Search
Results
Search results can be sorted by relevance or by date. The
default order is by relevance. If the search word or phrase is in a
chapter title, section
heading, or similar element in a book, that result is given greater
weight than books where the word or phrase appears in paragraphs.
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.
Relevance Indicators
In XML-based books and some HTML
books, if you click a search
result and then subsequently navigate to
the book's table of contents, the site displays
the table of contents with icons that indicate the relevance of the
book elements, as follows:
-
Any chapter, appendix, preface,
glossary, or index marked with the 
icon is the most relevant to your search criteria.
-
Any chapter, appendix, preface,
glossary, or index marked with the 
icon is the least relevant to your search criteria.
- Book elements that have no relevance are not marked with an
icon.
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