Optional Keyword Searching Methods

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Operator
Meaning

By default (when neither plus nor minus is specified) the word is optional, but the rows that contain it will be rated higher. This mimics the behavior of MATCH() ... AGAINST()DR


+
A leading plus sign indicates that this word must be present in every row returned.
-
A leading minus sign indicates that this word must not be present in any row returned.
< >
These two operators are used to change a word's contribution to the relevance value that is assigned to a row. The < operator decreases the contribution and the > operator increases it. See the example below.
( )
. Parentheses are put round sub-expressions to give them higher precedence in the search.
~
A leading tilde acts as a negation operator, causing the word's contribution to the row relevance to be negative. It's useful for marking noise words. A row that contains such a word will be rated lower than others, but will not be excluded altogether, as it would be with the minus operator.
*
An asterisk is the truncation operator. Unlike the other operators, it is appended to the word, or fragment, not prepended.

Double quotes at the beginning and end of a phrase, matches only rows