Energy Team Reference Database

HELP: Searching A USGS Central Region Energy Team On-Line Bibliography
Seach Engine by Ryan M. Roper, August, 1997 Part 1w
Search Options

The following is a list of search options found on the web page, and a description of how to use them.

Keywords

The keyword is the object of the search. Keywords must be separated by spaces. If you wish to search for a phrase (where a group of words represent a single "keyword"), put quotes around the phrase. For instance, if my Keywords box contained

Bob Smith

…all references containing both "Bob" and "Smith" would be found, regardless of whether the work was really written by Bob Smith, or by both Bob Jones and Jan Smith. To fix this problem, you would search for the following:

"Bob Smith"

Keywords can also include "regular expressions". Regular expressions allow for even more complex and customizable searches, and are entered inside of forward slashes in the Keywords box. An example of a keyword box containing a regular expression is shown below:

/open[- ]*file (report)? *[^\d]/

This search would find all open-file reports that do not have open-file report numbers. To search for those numberless open-file reports written by Mr. Smith, the following Keywords box would be used:

/open[- ]*file (report)? *[^\d]/ "Smith, B."

Regular expressions represent an optional tool, that is certainly not needed for any search. However, it should be available for those who are interested. A full explanation of regular expressions can be found at the end of this guide.

Fields to Search In

This pull-down box lets you limit the scope of the search to only a specific field. This can be useful, particularly in making the distinction between an author and editor in a search. Once the Author(s) field is selected, selecting the "Start of Field" option will limit your search even further, to the first author of a work.

AND

When this option is selected (it is the default), every keyword must be within a reference in the database for the search engine to report it.

When this option is selected, at least one of the keywords must be within a reference in the database for the search engine to report it back to you.

Inverse Search

When this option is selected, the search engine reports all references that did not meet your other search criteria. For example, if I were looking for all works that were not written by Bob Smith, "Smith, B." would be in my Keywords,the Author(s) field would be chosen from the Fields to Search in box, and Inverse Search would be selected.

Case Sensitive

When this option is selected, matches of keywords in a reference must match in terms of their capital and lowercase letters. This is a useful option in distinguishing between people and objects that share the same name, such as "Rose" and "Hill".

Whole Words

When this option is selected, keywords cannot be found within another word. For instance, a search for ‘Zech’ with the Whole Words option off yields references to Czechoslovakia and Zechstein. If the option is on, only the entire word "Zech" will match.

Start of Field

The Start of Field option was alluded to above. When this option is selected, matches must occur at the very beginning of the field that they are in. This is useful when finding first authors.

Number of Matches

This option limits your search to 10, 25, 50, 100, or 1000 matches at any given time, thus speeding up download times.

Output Format

This option allows you to pick from one of four report formats: HTML (table), tab delimited, comma delimited, and USGS 7^th (bibliographic citation format). The last is most useful when exporting references into a word processor. The tab delimited format can be used to export into spreadsheet and bibliographic software packages (such as Papyrus and EndNote). HTML format is useful in comparing references in a web browser.

Output To

This option allows you to have the search results come back to your web browser, or to have your web browser ask you to save the report to disk. The latter option is useful in exporting into other software, although it may be easier to copy-and-paste from the web screen in some applications.

Part 2w
Regular Expressions

From Programming Perl,O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

This is how to define a pattern to search for inside of the / / characters in the Keywords box:

The Rules

Each character matches itself, unless it is one of the special characters: +?.*()[]{}|\
/diabetes/ only matches "diabetes".
. matches an arbitrary character, but not a newline
/Gonzale./ matches "Gonzales", "Gonzalez", "Gonzalem", etc.
/i.e/ matches "mite", "bite", "life", etc.
(...) groups a series of pattern elements to a single element
The parenthesis group units together. For an example, see the next entry.
+ matches the preceding pattern element one or more times
/a+rdvark/ matches "ardvark", "aardvark", "aaardvark", etc. •(do)+ matches "do", "dodo", "dododo", etc.
? matches the preceding pattern element zero or one times
/outcomes?/ matches "outcome" and "outcomes"
/.?ill/ matches "ill", "bill", but not "still" •mex.*am matches "mex-am", "Mexican-American", "Mexican American", etc.
* matches the preceding pattern element zero or more times
/abs0*9/ matches "abs9", "abs09", "abs009", etc.
/.*ill/ matches "ill", "bill", "still", "schmill", etc.
{n} means exactly n times
/(e.?){3}/ matches "eve equals", but not "bee seepage"
{n,} means at least n times
{1,} is equivalent to +
{n,m} denotes the minum n and maximum m match count.
/bo{1,2}p/ matches "bop", "boop", but not "booop"
[...] denotes a class of characters to match
/Type [1,2]/ matches "Type 1" and "Type 2"
/abs00[0-9]/ matches "abs000", "abs001", up to "abs009"
(...|...|...) matches on of the alternatives
/(The|A) Christmas Story/ matches both "A Christmas Story" and "The Christmas Story", but not just "Christmas Story"
The above reserved punctuation can be searched for by ("escaped from their regular meanings") by using a preceding \
/1+1/ matches "1+1", "11+1", "111+1", etc.
/1\+1/ matches only "1+1"
/\\/ matches "\"
\w matches alphanumeric, including "_".
\W matches non-alphanumeric (i.e., punctuation)
\b matches word boundaries
\B matches non-boundaries
\s matches whitespace
\S matches non-whitespace
\d matches numeric
\D matches non-numeric
\n, \r, \f, \t mean "newline", "carriage-return", "form-feed", and "tab"
\w, \s, \d may be used within character classes, \b denotes backspace in this context.

Sources

Hansen, W.R., 1991, Suggestions to Authors of the Reports of the United States Geological Survey (Seventh ed.): Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 234-241 p.

Wall, L., and Schwartz, R.L., 1991, Programming perl: Sebastopol, CA, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 103-106 p.