Thanks Brian.
On 4/18/02 4:20 PM, "Brian Goetz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Can someone tell me the rationale for having the boolean operator only work >> if they are all caps? > > I can, since I was the one who made this decision. > > Most queries are entered in lower or mixed case. Treating 'and' as a > boolean operator has two deleterious effects: > - it removes 'and' from the spaces of tokens that can be part of a search > string, and even though most users will probably include 'and' in their > stop-list filter, not all will; > - An overriding goal of the query parser syntax design was to not > introduce features that are likely to catch unsophisticated users. Using > lower case 'and' and 'or' as search modifiers could confuse users who are > not aware that one can specify anything but a series of words. The other > syntax (&&, [], ~) were deliberately chosen to be unlikely to occur in > typical query texts. > > In my mind, the only alternative was not supporting AND at all and forcing > users to use the symbols. So instead of thinking about it as "'and' > doesn't work", think about it as "Isn't it nice that 'AND' is a convenient > synonym for '&&'". > > > > -- > Brian Goetz > Quiotix Corporation > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 650-843-1300 Fax: 650-324-8032 > > http://www.quiotix.com > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
