Using Search Commands in Dialog

SELECT

Next, I will use the SELECT command followed by my search terms.

The example below illustrates several SELECT statements.

Command	Example	When to Use It
SELECT S	select telecommut? s telecommut? s merg? or acqui? s s1 and s2	Use SELECT to create a set of records (e.g., s1) that contains the specified terms.

Brian wanted us to find information about sales of PlayStation 2 and also its competition Xbox. The sample below identifies the search terms we created in Lesson 2, including all truncation and proximity connectors.

Concept 1	Concept 2	Concept 3	Concept 4
playstation2	xbox	compet?	sale?
playstation()2	x()box		statistic?
ps2

To begin searching, I enter the Dialog SELECT command in the command text box followed by my search terms under Concept 1. I will conduct several searches, entering each concept as a separate search statement:

s playstation2 or playstation()2 or ps2

Tip 3-3

A search history page appears showing the number of records I found.

Go to the next page to see how to add more terms to our search.

3-3

Search Tip 3-2:

We also used the SELECT command with the databases selection tool (DIALINDEX).

The SELECT command does not create sets in DIALINDEX, however, but simply identifies databases with records that include the SELECTed terms.

Search Tip 3-3:

We can click the Previous button to retrieve the search that we entered in Databases.

If we had entered more than one search, we might have to click more than once to view the desired SELECT statement.

Learn More #1: Buttons

Buttons are available to help us check database details. Click:

to view the complete Bluesheet of the database listed.
for a current price listing.
and to view the most commonly used features in the selected database.

To see details for other databases in the list, we can use the drop-down list, click the database of interest, then click the desired button to obtain information on that database.

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