Global Search Queries
---------------------

This page documents search queries as understood by our xapian search engine (aka "the global search").

General xapian search query syntax is documented on the xapian website.

*   [https://getting-started-with-xapian.readthedocs.io/en/latest/concepts/search/queryparser.html](https://getting-started-with-xapian.readthedocs.io/en/latest/concepts/search/queryparser.html)

The specifics of GeneNetwork's use of xapian differs slightly in the choice of prefixes and special syntax such as the synteny search. The examples below may help to illustrate it.

### Free text search

Search for the term "cytochrome" in the free text.

cytochrome

Search for the term "cytochrome" and the term "P450" in the free text. Only results that have both are shown.

cytochrome AND P450

Search for occurrences of the term "cytochrome" near the term "P450" in the free text.

cytochrome NEAR P450 

Search for the term "cytochrome" in the free text but exclude results that have the term "P450".

cytochrome -P450
cytochrome NOT P450

### Boolean filtering

Search for results pertaining to the human species.

species:human

Search for results pertaining to the BXD group.

group:BXD

Search for results pertaining to chromosome 11.

chr:11

Search for results pertaining to the BXD group and chromosome 11.

group:BXD AND chr:11

### Boolean filtering using numerical ranges

Search for results with mean between 5 and 7.

mean:5..7

Search for results with mean less than 5.

mean:..5

Search for results with mean greater than 7.

mean:7..

### Synteny search

Search for results near (+/- 50 kbases) base 9930021 of chromosome 4 of the human species and syntenic locations in other species.

Hs:chr4:9930021

Search for results near (+/- 50 kbases) base 9930021 of chromosome 4 of the human species and syntenic locations in mouse alone.

Hs:chr4:9930021 species:mouse

Search for results between base 9130000 and 9980000 of chromosome 4 of the human species and syntenic locations in mouse alone.

Hs:chr4:9130000..9980000 species:mouse

Alternatively, this same query may be expressed using kilo or mega suffixes.

Hs:chr4:9130k..9980k species:mouse
Hs:chr4:9.13M..9.98M species:mouse

### Gotchas

#### Pure \`NOT\` queries are not supported

Due to

*   [performance reasons,](https://xapian.org/docs/apidoc/html/classXapian_1_1QueryParser.html#ae96a58a8de9d219ca3214a5a66e0407eacafc7c8cf7c90adac0fc07d02125aed0)

pure \`NOT\` queries are not supported.

A search such as:

NOT author:hager

will fail.

You will need to add something to the query to prevent the error, e.g.

species:mouse NOT author:hager