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.
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.