BIBLIJA.net - Help: 5. Advanced Word Search

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5. Advanced Word Search

The BIBLIJA.net program also supports some rather complex ways of finding words and sentences. Basic ways of finding words are described in “2. Word Search”. In the instructions that follow, it is assumed that you already know them.

A. Wildcards – Asterisk (*) and Question Mark (?)

When you search for a particular word, the program only finds occurences of the exact form of the word you entered. But if you add an asterisk (*) at the end, the program will find all the words beginning with the letters you typed before asterisk. For example: entering king*, will find the words “king”, “kings”, “kingdom” etc. The asterisk corresponds to zero, one or several letters (of any kind).
You can put an asterisk at the beginning of a word as well. In this case the program will find all the words ending with the letters after the asterisk. For example: entering *tion, will find the words “conception”, “imagination”, “generation”, “nation” etc.
Warning: searches with an asterisk at the beginning can slow down the program, especially if you enter a string that results in a large number of hits.
You can also use the asterisk in the middle of the word. In this case the program finds all the words beginning with the letters before the asterisk and ending with the letters after the asterisk. For example: entering a*tion, will find the words “affliction”, “abomination”, “adjuration” etc.
Instead of the asterisk you can use the question mark (?). Question mark always represents exactly one letter of any kind, whereas the asterisk represents zero, one or many letters of any kind. For example: entering king? will find the word “kings”, but not the word “king” (because the question mark requires a letter, but here there is none) and the word “kingdom” (because here there are three letters, but the question mark requires just one).
It is also possible to use more than one question mark at the same time. For example: entering king???, will find just the word “kingdom” (because three question marks require three letters of any kind).
You can also combine the asterisk and the question mark or use them a multiple times at different places of your word. For example: entering *tion?, will find words like “generations”, “nations” etc. (therefore: any number of letters before the “tion” and exactly one letter of any kind after it).

Note: it is required that there is at least one letter before an asterisk or a question mark at the end of the word or after an asterisk or a question mark at the beginning of the word.

B. Searching for a Sentence or a Phrase

If you want to find a sentence or a phrase in Scripture (i.e. a few words in their exact word order), enclose it in quotes. For example: entering "love thy neighbor" (with quotes!) will find all occurrences of this phrase in the Bible.
Within quotes you can still use the wildcards (* and ?). For example: entering "they shall be f*" (with quotes!) will find phrases such as “they shall be forgiven”, “they shall be full”, “they shall be fruitful” etc.

C. Setting Up a Relationship Between Entered Words (Logical Operators)

If you want to find verses that contain two or more of the entered words, simply separate these words with a space when you enter them. For example: if you enter Jesus Christ, the program will display all the verses where it has found the first AND the second word (logical operator AND). A unit in which the program is searching is one whole verse, which means that the words can be found in any order (not necessarily first the first and then the second) and in different parts of the verse (there can be other words between them) – see the examples. Obviously, such a search differs from a phrase search (where quotes are used), which displays a much narrower choice of hits.
If you want to find all the verses that contain at least one of the entered words, put a slash before each of the entered words except the first one. For example: if you enter Barnabas /Mark /John, the program will display all the verses where it has found the first OR the second OR the third word (logical operator OR).
If you want to find verses that contain the first, but not the second (and the third, etc.) word, put a minus before the words that should not occur. For example: if you enter Christ -Jesus, the program will display the verses where it has found the first word but NOT the second one as well (logical operator NOT) – i.e. these verses must NOT contain the second word.
If you want to find the verses that contain only the first or only the second word, but not both together, put a bar before the second word. For example: if you enter Jesus |Christ, the program will display the verses where it has found ONLY the first word OR ONLY the second word (logical operator XOR, the exclusive OR) – the verses with both words will not be displayed (this is the difference from logical operator OR).
If it is necessary, you can use more than one logical operator in the same entry, but you must pay attention to their order. The program processes them from left to right and it does not support the use of brackets for changing their order. For example: if you enter Nazarene /Christ Jesus, the program will display the verses where words “Nazarene” and “Jesus” or “Christ” and “Jesus” occur. In other words: in each verse there has to be the word “Nazarene” OR “Christ” AND in each verse there has to be the word “Jesus”. Entry of Jesus Nazarene /Christ would display different results: verses that have words “Jesus” AND “Nazarene” OR verses that have (at least) the word “Christ”.
An entry that uses logical operators can be combined with wildcards (* and ?). For example: if you enter king* heaven*, the program will display the verses where it has found any form of the root “king” (ex. “king”, “kings”, “kingdom” etc.) AND any form of the root “heaven” (ex. “heaven, “heavens”, “heavenly” etc.)
It is also possible to use the logical operators for finding combinations of different phrases. For example: if you enter "Jesus Christ" /"Jesus the Nazarene", the program will display all the verses that contain either the first phrase (“Jesus Christ”) OR the second one (“Jesus the Nazarene”).
It is not possible to use the logical operators within quotes (i.e. when you are searching for a phrase or a sentence).

D. Capital Letters, Punctuation and Special Characters

The program does not make a distinction between lowercase and uppercase letters, so it does not have any effect if you use one or the other in your entry. For example: if you enter spirit, the program will also find the word “Spirit” and vice versa.
The program does not allow you to search for punctuation. Entry of "Jesus, the" would be rejected. On the other hand, entry "Jesus the" would display both the verses where the phrase contains a comma and the verses with no comma in this phrase.
In some versions certain words contain special characters – they are mainly accented vowels, for example in the word “Moáb” (found in SSP). The program displays these special characters, but it does not take them into account when doing a word search. For example: if you enter moab, the program displays all the verses where it has found the word “Moáb” and if there were instances where this word does not have an accent or has a different one, the program displays these verses, too.

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