Searching Redux

[Dave Melvin]

In the Search box, if you type:

name:~"*+*"

it will return all files with the '+' character in their name.


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

Can anyone explain how (as was so easy in XP) I can search with Vist for
part
of a file name, (ie. +, ++, or other characters) I add to files?

This does not work for me. For example, I'm searching a folder for pictures
with the underscore character in the name, i.e., "file_name". Using your
suggestion, I type "name:~"*_*" in the search box and I get every file in
the folder listed, even those with no underscore character. What's up?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Guest]

It only returns files with underscore in them here.

In the Search box, if you type:

name:~"*+*"

it will return all files with the '+' character in their name.


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

Can anyone explain how (as was so easy in XP) I can search with Vist for
part
of a file name, (ie. +, ++, or other characters) I add to files?

This does not work for me. For example, I'm searching a folder for
pictures
with the underscore character in the name, i.e., "file_name". Using your
suggestion, I type "name:~"*_*" in the search box and I get every file in
the folder listed, even those with no underscore character. What's up?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

This does not work for me. For example, I'm searching a folder for
pictures
with the underscore character in the name, i.e., "file_name". Using your
suggestion, I type "name:~"*_*" in the search box and I get every file in
the folder listed, even those with no underscore character. What's up?

Do you get EVERY file? Or just those with a blank " " as well as an "_"?
That's the behavior I'm seeing. :-(

I know that outside of quotes, certain characters were intended to be
interpreted as white space, but it shouldn't happen within them. Sorry, I
have no answer.

 

[Dave Melvin]

This does not work for me. For example, I'm searching a folder for
pictures
with the underscore character in the name, i.e., "file_name". Using your
suggestion, I type "name:~"*_*" in the search box and I get every file in
the folder listed, even those with no underscore character. What's up?

Do you get EVERY file? Or just those with a blank " " as well as an "_"?
That's the behavior I'm seeing. :-(

I know that outside of quotes, certain characters were intended to be
interpreted as white space, but it shouldn't happen within them. Sorry, I
have no answer.


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

Keith,
When I run the search, it shows me the first 5,000 files in the folder.
If I click on "show all search results", it gives me 47,096 files. When I
right-click on the folder and select properties, it tells me I have 46,082
files in the folder!

Thanks for the assist,

dam

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

The higher number of search results would be the result of searching
subfolders. If you place a sampling of items in a test folder, I think
you'll see what I'm saying. I had one folder with an "_" in its name, I got
19 results: the one folder + 18 items with a " " in their name. When I
searched for ~"* *", I got 18 results: all the blanks without the "_"
folder!!!

To annoy me further, 'NOT' doesn't invert the search. I would have hoped
that NOT(~"* *") would have returned all items without a " " in their names,
but no such luck!!! Got the exact same result set. :-(


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

In the Search box, if you type:

name:~"*+*"

it will return all files with the '+' character in their name.


This does not work for me. For example, I'm searching a folder for
pictures
with the underscore character in the name, i.e., "file_name". Using your
suggestion, I type "name:~"*_*" in the search box and I get every file
in
the folder listed, even those with no underscore character. What's up?

Do you get EVERY file? Or just those with a blank " " as well as an "_"?
That's the behavior I'm seeing. :-(

I know that outside of quotes, certain characters were intended to be
interpreted as white space, but it shouldn't happen within them. Sorry,
I have no answer.


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

Keith,
When I run the search, it shows me the first 5,000 files in the folder.
If I click on "show all search results", it gives me 47,096 files. When I
right-click on the folder and select properties, it tells me I have 46,082
files in the folder!

Thanks for the assist,

dam

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:00:07 -0500, "Keith Miller MVP"

To annoy me further, 'NOT' doesn't invert the search. I would have hoped
that NOT(~"* *") would have returned all items without a " " in their names,
but no such luck!!! Got the exact same result set. :-(

Quite. What a preceding ~ does is to force expansion of wildcard
characters that are otherwise either taken as literals, or ignored -
who can say, without an hour's testing and state charting, which
particular characters MS decides to ignore as white space?

Search has changed from using filespec syntax to an ad-hoc mix of
that, overlaid with a grab-bag of conventions from other contexts,
plus a few brand-new bright ideas - and we are supposed to smell which
applies in any given context.

It's become the worst of both worlds... impacting system performance,
safety and durability with the indexer's constant groping of content,
and being too unreliable to trust, in that you have no idea what it's
really doing. Sure, there are reasons for each mis-match between what
it does and what the user thinks it does, but who wants to take a
year's night-school course just to use a file search?

More to the point, every mis-match of expectations can, in certain
contexts, be a disaster. Above all else, search MUST be predictable
and match expectations, even if it is really simple in abilities.

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The bulls were running wild
because they're big and mean and sacred (Jack J)