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Application Icon   Boolean operators

Boolean operators are words or characters used to concatenate parts of a search query using Boolean logic. While each part of the chain of parts is evaluated individually, the whole chain, defined by the operators, needs to be true for a search result to get listed. Boolean operators work only when search file contents, not file names.

The syntax of EasyFind's Boolean operators is identical to the one of DEVONagent and DEVONthink.

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    AND, BUT, +, & : Logical And
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    OR, | : Logical Or
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    NOT, -, ! : Logical Not
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    ~ : Proximity to match partial words/substrings, too (otherwise only complete words are accepted). Placed in front of the search word
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    XOR, EOR, ^ : Logical Exclusive Or
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    NEAR : Matches words within a range of ten words
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    NEAR/n : Matches words within a range of n words
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    AFTER, BEFORE, NEXT : Matches words appearing before or after each other. Can be combined with /n, see NEAR/n.
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    () : Parenthesis, groups parts of the query logically
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    "" : Phrases, find exactly the string in the quotes; phrases can contain the '*' operator.

Example:

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    steve AND jobs : Matches everything containing both 'steve' and 'jobs' regardless of their position.
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    ~DEVONtech : Matches 'DEVONtech' as well as 'DEVONtechnologies'
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    steve BEFORE/2 jobs : Matches 'Steve Jobs' as well as 'Steve P. Jobs' or 'Steve looks for jobs'.
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    "Steve Jobs" : Matches only exactly the string 'Steve Jobs'.