The query lanuage allows the user to perform queries and combine the results in a number of different ways. The basic syntax is lisp-like and uses s-expressions enclosed in parens. An example query follows:
(& (concept clintons policy on bosnia) (strict gorazde))
The '&' operator is the intersection/and operator, and is desribed in more detail below. The above query would return the documents containing both the concept 'clintons policy on bosnia' and the word 'gorazde.'
Operators available in the architextSearch query language:
(& (s clinton) (s marijuana) (! (s inhale)))
would return only those articles containing the
words clinton and marijuana but not the word inhale.
(& (c homelessness) (! (s vagrancy)))
would return all the documents containing the concept
'homelessness', but not the word 'vagrancy.'
It is important to emphasize that the best method for doing queries with architextSearch is to simply use the 'concept' operator followed by a natural language query. You can experiment with the 'strict' operator and the boolean operators after you become more familiar with the query language, but, in general, it is best (and easiest) to simply use the concept query operator.
ArchiText can be reached at architxt@netcom.com