Simple search

To find information in this information center, type a word or phrase into the search entry field in the masthead, select the index you want to search in from the drop-down list, and press Go. Common short words, such as "the" and "a", are known as "stopwords" and are ignored in the search process so your phrase must include at least one substantive word.

By default, the search engine interprets search arguments that contain more than one word as a logical AND. For example, the search argument

  global user exits

returns a list of topics that include each of the terms global, user, and exits, but not necessarily in consecutive order.

To search for an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in double quotation marks. For example, the search argument

    "global user exits"

produces results that include the exact phrase global user exits. To include or exclude words from search results, use plus (+) and minus (-) signs. When using signs, do not leave any space between the sign and the word. For example, the search argument

    +"user exits" -global

produces results that include user exits, but do not include global.

You can also use wildcards to widen your searches. Use an asterisk (*) as a placeholder for any number of characters, or a question mark (?) as a placeholder for a single character. For example, the search argument

    +database -map*

returns a list of topics that contain database but do not contain map, mapped, maps, mapping, mappings, or any other word beginning with the string map. If the wildcard results in too many real search terms, you may get an error. If this occurs, make your wildcard expression more specific.