Plain Text Search

Plain text search may be used to search for single or multi-word phrases, while a regular expression search accepts only single words such as "frustrat*". The following table shows characters that may be used to perform special functions when using plain text search.

Table 1. Special Search Characters for Plain Text Search

Character

Function

Example

Meaning

- (minus)

Exclude

-not happy

Files that do not contain "not happy"

&

AND

cell phone & tablet

Files containing both "cell phone" and "tablet"

|

OR

cell phone | tablet

Files containing either "cell phone" or "tablet"

*

Wildcard for 0+ characters

help*

Will return results for help, helping, helpful, and other variants of the word stem. Does not work with multi-word searches.

?

Single character wildcard

th???

Will return results for "there", "thank", "those". Does not work with multi-word searches.

~n

Search for phrases appearing up to n words apart within the same speaker turn

cancel account ~4

Files containing "cancel" and "account" within the same speaker turn and no more than 4 words apart. For example, "cancel your, the account", "cancel my daughter’s membership account", and so on.

~t

Search for phrases appearing within the same speaker turn

cancel account ~t

Files in which "cancel" and "account" appear in the same speaker turn

^

Search for phrases found at the beginning of a speaker turn

^ thank you

Files containing "thank you" at the beginning of a speaker turn

$

Search for phrases found at the end of a speaker turn

account number $

Files containing "account number" at the end of a speaker turn

Note: The ^ (beginning of line) and $ (end of line) characters were added in V‑Spark Version 3. Data uploaded prior to Version 3 cannot be searched using these characters.