Boolean search

Boolean search

A search for specific data. It implies that any condition can be searched for using the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT. For example, the English language request: "Search for all Spanish and French speaking employees who have MBAs would be expressed as follows. The Spanish and French comparison is placed in parentheses to treat them both as a single item.

  list for degree = "MBA" and

  (language = "Spanish" or language = "French")

In the example below, the parentheses are missing. In this case, anybody who speaks Spanish and has an MBA or anyone who speaks French, regardless of degree, would be selected.

  list for degree = "MBA" and language = "Spanish"

  or language = "French"

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Boolean search [′bü·lē·ən ′sərch]

(computer science)

A search for selected information, that is, information satisfying conditions that can be expressed by AND, OR, and NOT functions.

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(information science)

Boolean search - (Or "Boolean query") A query using the Boolean operators, AND, OR, and NOT, and parentheses to construct a complex condition from simpler criteria. A typical example is searching for combinatons of keywords on a World-Wide Web search engine. Examples: car or automobile "New York" and not "New York state" The term is sometimes stretched to include searches using other operators, e.g. "near". Not to be confused with binary search. See also: weighted search.